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IN 



HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCE. 

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ELEVENTH SERIES 



III-IV 



THE NEGRO IN THE DISTRICT 
OF COLUMBIA 



By EDWARD INGLE, A. B. 

Washinyton, D. C. 



BALTIMORE 
T I M. Johns HOPKINS P B i: S S 

PUBLISHED MONTHLY 

March-April, 1 S«>:{ 



/ 









i optbisht, 1898, by The Johns Hopkins Pbkss. 



THE FKIEDKNWAI.I) Co., I'BINTEBS, 
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CONTENTS. 

I. Introduction. 

II. The Basis of Operations. 

III. Applying the Lever. 

IV. Striving for Equality. 

V. An Experiment in Suffrage. 

VI. A Generation Afterward. 




\A 



THE NEGRO IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 



INTRODUCTION. 

To determine the position which the negroes of the 
United States are to occupy toward the civilization of this 
country is a problem which should engage the sober, serious 
efforts of all those who desire good government and the 
stability of society. The solution of that problem is not to 
be had in ignoring facts about the race, or in hopes that 
the negroes will return to the homes of their forefathers. 
They have been in this country for two centuries and a 
half, they have been influenced more or less by their sur- 
roundings, they have formed attachments to the soil which 
may not easily be eradicated, and, as modern migration is 
not toward the East, they are likely to remain in the 
United States. They will either degenerate or advance 
toward the goal for which the white race is striving; but 
whatever their tendency, its developments and its results can- 
not fail to affect the white race, upon whom will largely 
depend the outcome. 

The basis for a proper treatment of the subject is to be 
had only in the calm, impersonal, scientific sifting of the 
evidence on both sides of the slave question in all parts of 
the country, which is hardly possible, perhaps, for this 
generation; and in the honest, unprejudiced and equally 
scientific consideration of facts about the condition — social, 
moral, political, and religious — of the negroes of to-day. 
Truths may be revealed which may be distasteful, but they 
must be told if the best interests of this country are to be 
subserved; and when by earnest and unbiased workers in 
even r section of the country the mass of testimony has been 



8 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [100 

gathered and classified, the man will probably have been 
born who will be able to review it in a brief which will find 
support in united public opinion. 

Probably no field for the study of some of the many 
phases of this great problem presents better opportunities 
than those to be had in the District of Columbia, the seat 
of the general government. This territory, inhabited largely 
by an urban or suburban population, has always been a 
kind of experimental station, from law-making to rain- 
making, for the country; and the fact that there was fore- 
shadowed much of the special legislation for the negro 
which has been embodied in the last three amendments of 
the Constitution, and that the life there presents many 
remarkable features and many extremes in various lines of 
human activity, makes the study interesting and instructive 
for the investigator. The manifestations of the character 
of the negro population in the District, which confront the 
stranger on ever}- hand, were the incentives to the work 
which has resulted in the following pages, and the aim 
throughout has been to examine whatever material was 
available among official documents, the files of newspapers 
or in other publications, for the purpose of discovering the 
sources of conditions as they exist to-day, and by personal 
observation and inquiry among those best qualified to speak, 
to present those conditions in a light removed from mere 
theory or personal opinion. 

No attempt has been made to deal with the subject of 
slavery except as reference had to be made to it in deter- 
mining the standpoint of observation. What may be 
termed the treatment of the forensic ami legislative side of 
that question has been written by Miss Mary Tremain, of 
the University of Nebraska, in her monograph entitled 
"Slavery in the District of Columbia": but in connection 
with this should be read the able and conscientious work, 
"The Negro in Maryland," by Dr. Jeffrey R. Rrackctt, of 
the Johns Hopkins University, and its supplement, "Notes 
on the Progress of the Colored IV- >ple of Maryland Since 



101] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 9 

the War." A like Virginia treatment is yet to come. A 
most valuable contribution to the literature of the ante- 
bellum and reconstruction periods is the " Special Report 
of the Commissioner of Education on the Condition and 
Improvement of Public Schools in the District of Columbia," 
submitted to the Senate, June, 1868, and to the House, 
with additions, June 13, 1871. This volume, which was 
printed in 1871, contains, beside the results of a census 
taken in the fall of 1867 by Dr. Franklin Hough, a minute 
history of the schools for the colored population in the 
District, prepared by M. B. Goodwin, which has furnished 
many facts for portions of this monograph, and a compila- 
tion showing the legal status of the negro in the country at 
large in respect to education in 1867. 

Other material has been gathered from the Congressional 
Globe, the Congressional Record, the reports of the com- 
mittees who investigated District affairs while it was a Ter- 
ritory, acts of the legislative assembly, reports of the 
Bureau of Education, public school reports, and reports of 
the District Commissioners, with which are bound the 
valuable statistics furnished by the Superintendent of Police, 
by the chief clerk of the department, Mr. Richard Sylvester, 
by the Health Officer, and other branches of municipal 
government. The census reports also contain some ma- 
terial, but it is chiefly of a general character, though it may 
be that the census, with the reports of the Commissioner of 
Education, will hereafter deal with the subject more mi- 
nutely and furnish the basis for the true treatment of the 
problem, the solution of which is so important for both the 
whites and the negroes. 

This study is the result of nearly eighteen months' inves- 
tigation at the odd intervals of leisure in active newspaper 
work, and whatever links may be missing or wrong deduc- 
tions made must not be attributed to the lack of a desire to 
present all necessary facts and to form an unprejudiced 
judgment. 

Washington, D. C, January 18, 1893. 



I. 

THE BASIS OF OPERATIONS. 

In the spring and summer of 1862 three commissioners, 
appointed under an Act of Congress, were engaged at 
Washington in a task which was at the same time novel and 
significant. Compromises of eighty years had given place 
to force, and while the armies of two great sections 
were debating on the field of battle the questions involved 
in slavery, that question was being settled for the seat of the 
nation's government on a peaceable and equitable basis. 
It was the turning-point in the career of the negro popu- 
lation of the District of Columbia; it meant freedom and 
hope for them, and grave doubt and anxiety for the white 
race, who, confronted with radically changed conditions, 
could not readily grasp the problems presented to them. 
Slavery was passing, and in its disappearance were born 
social, economic, and political questions which to-day, after 
a generation has passed, are still not settled to the satis- 
faction of all persons concerned. 

To determine the causes of this state of affairs a general 
idea of the character of the colored race in the District 
must be had, and this may not be gained by comparing 
their life of 1893 with that of i860 without some knowledge 
of what they were before the war and of the additions to 
the population during the past thirty years. Slavery, though 
it furnished the text for many a practical or rhetorical effort 
in Congress during the early half of the century, cannot be 
said to have hern a cherished favorite of the people of the 
District, and it is likely that it would have died a natural 
death long before it was legally executed had the people 
been left to follow their inclinations, uninfluenced by the 
reflections at the capital of the contending sentiments of 
extremists in both sections of the country, or by the fears 



lO^J The Negro in the District of Columbia. 11 

excited by such a movement as the Nat Turner uprising in 
Virginia. This would be apparent, if other evidence was 
lacking in a study of the statistics of population from 1810 
to i860. In the former year, when the District included 
the tract ceded by Virginia, the total population was 14,093, 
of whom 10,066 were whites, 783 free negroes, and 3,244 
slaves; in the latter year, in a total population of 75,080, 
there were 60,764 whites, 11,131 free negroes, and 3185 
slaves. The white population had increased more than five 
hundred per cent., the free negroes more than thirteen 
hundred per cent, while the slaves had decreased about one- 
per cent, and three-quarters. Though the increase of the 
white population had been pretty regular, the greatest 
advance having been made after 1846, when Alexandria was 
ceded back to Virginia, and after 1850, when the slave trade 
was forbidden in the District, while the number of free 
negroes had increased steadily, the period between 1830 and 
1850 showing the greatest ratio of increase, but that fol- 
lowing 1850 showing a tendency for the increase to be 
checked, the number of slaves, which rose to 4520 in 1820 
and again to 3687 in 1850, had decreased by 502 in 
ten years and by 59 in sixty years. In 1810 the slaves con- 
stituted 22.97 P er cent, of the population of the District; 
in i860 they were but 4.25 per cent, of it. However, the 
laws which formed what was known as the " black code," 
and which were the embodiments-^ the negro code of Mary- 
land and Virginia existing in February, 1801, and the sub- 
sequent ordinances of the municipalities within the District 
and the modifications of Congress, had effect not only upon 
the bondsmen, but upon the free negroes. Though there </ 
are instances of extreme harshness in the execution of them, 
and though no one would tolerate them for a moment to- 
day, the position which both the slaves and the free negroes 
as classes occupied at the outbreak of the war demonstrates 
not only that they had shown a wonderful fortitude and 
developed traits of thrift and enterprise in the face of the 
menacing code, but that that code had possessed for the 



12 Tht Negro in the District of Columbia. [101 

majority of them, except in the most important matters of 
education and restriction of personal liberty, the character 
rather of a menace than of a system of rigorous, unrelenting 
practice. 

Slavery has been abolished, and no persons would be 
more opposed to its restoration in this country than those 
who felt its burdens the most; but it had two sides. As 
the field-hand was a comparatively small element in slavery 
as it existed in the District, the system there presented 
what may be termed its more favorable side, and though 
the slaves may have been restricted in their means of 
acquiring book learning, they were assisted toward acquir- 
ing this weapon of education by the whites in Sunday 
worship and about the house, especially before the terrors of 
1 83 1 which did much to estrange the two races; and in the 
daily life in the cities they, with their nimble wits, acquired 
a practical education which may not be had in the mere 
learning to read and write. On the other hand the free 
negroes, who were representatives of a superior element of 
their race and were destined to be a powerful leaven for. their 
fellows, had many advantages in the beginning. " Many of 
them," says one writer who possessed excellent opportu- 
nities to study them, " were favorite family servants, who 
came here with congressmen from the South and with the 
families of other public officers, and who by long and faith- 
ful service had secured, by gift, purchase or otherwise, their 
freedom. Others were superior mechanics, house sen-ants, 
and enterprising in various callings, who obtained their free- 
dom by their own persevering industry. Some, also, had 
received their freedom before coming to this city." 1 Ben- 
jamin Banneker, the negro astronomer, assisting in sur- 
veying the District in 1701: Sophia Browning buying her 
husband's freedom for $430 from the proceeds of her 
market garden, and being in turn purchased by him; Alethia 
Tanner purchasing her own freedom in 1S10 for $1400, and 

'Special Report, Commissioner of Education, p. 195. 



105] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 13 

that of her sister Laurena Cook and five children in 1826; 
John F. Cook, one of those children, a shoemaker by trade, 
learning the rudiments of education while a messenger in 
the Treasury Department, and closing a useful life, in spite 
of persecution at the hands of a mob, as a minister and 
educator among his people, and leaving sons to carry on 
his work, — are but some of the examples of the spirit dis- 
played by the free negroes. Before the date of the Xat 
Turner outbreak there are evidences that the relations of 
the two races in the District were of more trustfulness and 
consequently of greater friendliness than afterward; but, as 
one of the descendants of a negro who probably suffered 
most through the feeling against his race fomented by that 
event writes, " The darkness that had gathered about him 
presented an opportunity for the exhibition of a character 
which, under ordinary circumstances, might never have been 
seen. The withdrawal of the friendly mite which had been 
occasionally given and the friendly word aroused a spirit of 
determination, self-reliance, and irrepressible energy that 
instantly foreshadowed eventual success.'" 1 There are also 
evidences that the mite and the friendly word were not 
entirely absent in the subsequent years, and the sentiments 
of the whites toward the negroes in spite of the u black 
code," and the ability of the negroes to make good even 
their slight advantages, are proved by their possession, at the 
outbreak of the war, of $650,000 in real estate and the 
support of their own schools and churches. 

Such was in brief the condition of the negroes of the 
District when war. following the election of a President 
whose views on the question of slavery were well defined, 
rendered it expedient and practicable for the experiment of 
emancipation to be made in the District. At the outset of 
the second session of the Thirty-seventh Congress, in De- 
cember, 1S61. Senator Wilson, whose name will always be 
associated with those of Grimes, Sumner, and others 



1 Public Schools of the District. 1874-75, p. 91. 



14: The "Negro in the District of Columbia. [100 

connection with the efforts on behalf of the negroes of the 
District and of the country at large, introduced into the 
Senate a resolution providing that the Committee on the 
District of Columbia should take into consideration all 
measures relating to fugitives from service and all laws 
relating to negroes in the District, with a view to abolishing 
slavery in the District. 

This he followed later with a bill to abolish slaver}', and 
a bill to annul the " black code." The Senator was 
determined to push matters, and his speech of March, 
1862, was an impassioned arraignment of the system which 
he and others would abolish. The question was debated at 
great length, and finally the bill abolishing slavery, pass- 
ing the Senate April 3 and the House April n, was signed 
by President Lincoln, April 16, 1862, the free negroes and 
those who had been placed on the straight road to freedom 
uniting in their churches in thanksgiving for the act. 1 The 
act provided that u all persons held to service <»r labor 
within the District of Columbia by reason of African 
descent are hereby discharged and freed of and from all 
claim to such service or labor, and from and after the 
passage of this act neither slavery nor involuntary servitude. 
except for crime, whereof the party shall be duly convicted, 
shall hereafter exist in said District." A sum of money not 
exceeding $1,000,000 was appropriated to compens 
owners loyal to the government for their former slaves, it 
being provided that the average price for each slave should 
not exceed $300, and the compensation was not to extend 
to those persons who were disloyal to the rnmenl 

who should bring slaves into the District after the pass 
of the act. Kidnapping was declared a felony, the punish- 
ment being placed at from five to twenty years' imprison- 
ment 'hie point of additional interest about the act was 
the appropriation of $100,000 to aid in the colonization of 
free persons, including those liberated, "as may desire to 

1 Special Report, Commissioner of Education, 1871, p. 319, 



107] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 15 

emigrate to Hayti or Liberia or to such country beyond the 
limits of the United States as the President may determine." 
Both compensation and colonization, the principles which 
had prevailed in earlier schemes for emancipation, were still 
recognized, and the extreme war measure was not yet 
announced. In that it differed in a marked degree from the 
measures leading to the Thirteenth Amendment submitted 
February I, 1865, and ratified in the following December, 
and the interests of slaveholders loyal to the government 
were still protected. As late as July 17, 1862, in an act "to 
suppress insurrection," etc., it was ordered that the slaves 
of those in arms against the United States were to be 
declared captives of war, and that all slaves "being within 
any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied 
by the forces of the United States shall be deemed captives 
of war and shall be forever free of their servitude and not 
again held as slaves." The act also provided that no slave 
escaping to free soil should be delivered unless the person 
claiming him should be able to prove his loyalty to the 
government, and that the President should be authorized to 
provide for the transportation of slaves freed under it or to 
use them in any way he thought proper to bring the war to 
a close. Even in his warning of September 22, 1862, Mr. 
Lincoln clung to the idea of the earlier emancipation, and 
when the South had refused to heed either the bribes of 
pecuniary relief or the threats, his emancipation proclamation 
of January 1, 1863, was declared by him to be "a fit and 
necessary war measure," and it was to have effect only in 
the territory actually occupied by the Confederate forces, 
the document expressly defining them as follows: 
" Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. 
P>ernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. 
James, Ascension, Assumption, Terra Bonne, La Fourche, 
Ste. Marie, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New 
Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South 
Carolina. North Carolina, and Virginia (excepting the forty- 
eight counties designated as West Virginia and also the 



10 The A egro in the District of Columbia. [108 

counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth 
Lily, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the 
cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth, and which excepted parts 
are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were 
not issued "). 

Put while these war measures were being advanced, 
the disenthralment of the three thousand slaves or 
more in the District was rinding its complement in the 
careful daily sessions of the three commissioners, Daniel R. 
Goodloe, Horatio King, and J. M. Brodhead, who had been 
appointed under the act of April 16 to arrange for the 
compensation of the owners. They began their inquest 
April 28, and at the outset were confronted with the fact 
that they could depend upon no person in Washington to 
appraise the slaves. " There are few persons," they said, 
" especially in a community like Washington, where slavery 
has been for many years an interest of comparatively trifling 
importance, who possess the knowledge and discrimination 
as to the value of slaves which are necessary to a just 
apportionment of compensation under the law." It was, 
they claimed, difficult to assign value to slaves, and consul- 
tation with an experienced dealer in slaves, Mr. B. M. 
Campbell, of Baltimore, led to the conclusion that " Slaves 
in fact cannot be said to have had a current saleable value 
since the commencement of the war; while their intrinsic 
value on the 16th day of April, as determined by the un- 
diminished value of tbe products of the soil and the un- 
diminished wages of labor, was not less than formerly. 
Indeed, in both these respects it was greater, since there has 
been a constant rise of prices, both of labor and products." 
Campbell, too, had ceased to purchase slaves since May. 
iS()i, as "all communication with the South was then cut 
off.'' He, however, -ave the commissioners some figures of 
his purchases between February 2 and May 18 of that 
year. < >f thirty-seven slaves whom he had handled, the 
majority "f them being in the prime of life, and four being 
children, the average cost had been $036.75. Other diffi- 



109] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 17 

culties in the way of reaching a just average were found in 
the varying character of the slaves. The chief support of 
some families had been derived from hiring out their slaves, 
while in other cases expenses had been reduced by employ- 
ing the slaves at home. Some slaves were held for a term 
of years or for the life of the owner, some were securities 
for the payment of debts, and in some instances there 
existed an agreement between the slaves and their owners 
that emancipation was to be given upon the payment of a 
certain sum. The commissioners finally adopted the plan 
of classifying the slaves " according to their value before 
the commencement of the war, and reducing these classes to 
the average compensation allowed by law." According 
to their report the whole number of petitions under the 
original act was 966, of which 909 were granted, 36 were 
rejected entirely, and 21 were rejected in part. Under an 
additional act of July 12, 1862, whereby slaves were per- 
mitted to file their own schedules, and the right of negroes 
to testify was emphasized, 161 petitions were presented, of 
which 139 were granted and 22 were rejected. Later, 
thirteen claims for twenty-eight slaves, filed by persons who 
had been prevented from one cause or another from avail- 
ing themselves of the provisions of the act of April, were 
allowed, the sum involved being $7212.50, and the total 
amount of compensation being kept within the million 
dollars. The largest amount paid to any one person was 
$17,771.85 for his sixty-nine slaves, and the smallest sum 
allowed for any slave was $21.90 for a male infant. 

It is noticeable that in some cases the beneficiaries under 
the act were negroes, one man receiving $2168.10 for ten 
slaves, another $832.20 for two, another $43.80 for one, and 
another $547.50 for one, while from the $4073.40 placed to 
the credit of the Sisters of the Visitation of Georgetown. 
$298.75 were deducted, as that amount had been paid to 
the Sisters by Ignatius Tilghman toward the purchase of the 
freedom of his family. The claims for two free-born 
negroes were not allowed, and some of the slaves were too 
feeble by reason of advanced vears to be of anv value. 



18 The Negro in tJie District of Columbia. [110 

Air. Campbell was of great assistance to the commissioners 
in estimating the value of the slaves, and it is related that 
his last resort, when very great difficulties were presented, 
an examination of the negroes' teeth. The commis- 
sioners, as well as the government, were greatly aided also 
by Mr. W. R. Woodward, upon whom much of the clerical 
work fell. They had some curious experiences during their 
labors. For instance, one man brought before them could 
not give any idea of his age bey< md the statement that 
" during General Washington's war he could catch a horse 
and feed him"; and when questioned as to the value of his 
services, indicated that he could plow in one day half as 
much as an able-bodied man. A case was presented of a 
slave whose former owner had died, willing his slaves to 
his wife for her lifetime, and after her death they were to 
be freed and were to inherit his Maryland farm. Some 
owners were slow to take advantage of the act, being under 
the impression that their sentiments regarding the war 
would debar them; but they were assured that they were 
really beneficiaries, provided they had committed no overt 
act against the government. Revelations were made of 
attempts to evade the law by the removal of slaves into ter- 
ritory not affected by it. and it was shown that one man 
had transported all his slaves ten days before the act became 
a reality, to his farm which lay partly in Maryland and 
partly in the I >istrict, and had housed them in a tenement 
built beyond the District line, to which their daily food was 
sent by members of the family from the dwelling within the 
I Ustrict. Such cases as these led to the supplementary act 
of July i j, [862, which provided that "all persons held t<> 
service or labor under the laws of any State and who at 
any time since the sixteenth of April Anno Domini 1 862, 
by the consenl of the persons t<> whom such service and 
labor is claimed to he owing, have been actually employed 
within the District of Columbia, or who shall be hereafter 
thus employed, are hereby declared free and Forever released 



Ill] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 19 

from such service, anything in the laws of the United State.-, 
or any State to the contrary notwithstanding." 1 

Upon the passage of the emancipatory act some slaves 
left the homes of their former owners to take places else- 
where, some left the District to find work, but others 
remained to mingle with the thousands of men who had 
been born free or who had become so without the legal 
intervention of the government or the exercise of a right 
founded upon might. 

Presently, though, they were joined by others of their race, 
who had not enjoyed either the comparative advantages of 
bondage in a city where population was denser, and conse- 
quently where a gaining of practical knowledge was easier, 
or the opportunities of free negroes, though hedged in by 
restrictions arising from the presence of a slave element. 
The safeguards against migration from Maryland and \ ir- 
ginia, which had been asked of Congress, had not been pro- 
vided, and the hegira from those hyo States to the negroes' 
Land of Canaan had begun. It continued for many years, 
the greatest number of negroes arriving as fugitives, or con- 
trabands, before 1867, and another large inflation of this 
portion of the population occurring between 1870 and 1874. 
A comparison of the populations in two decades shows not 
only the marvelous rapidity with which the negroes flocked 
to the capital, but also that the fears of 1862 of citizens of 
the District were not unfounded. Between i860 and 1870 
the population of the District increased from 75,080, of 
whom 14,316 were negro, to 131,700, of whom 43.404 
were negro; and between 1870 and 1880 the population 
increased to 177,624, of whom 59,506 were negro. Of the 
negroes in the District in 1870 but 13,448 were natives of 
the District, while 16,785 had come from Virginia and 
West Virginia and 11,720 from Maryland; and of the negro 
population of 1880, Virginia had furnished 19,913 and 



•The details of this remarkable transaction are given in full in 
the report of the Commissioners, Executive Documents, No. 42, 
Thirty-Eighth Congress, 1st session. 



20 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [112 

Maryland 12,245, — me natives of the District numbering 

24,775- 

Midway between i860 and 1874 a most thorough census 
of the District was made under the auspices of the Bureau 
of Education, and the figures appearing in the report of that 
work are full of suggestiveness. The white population was 
then 88,327, and the negroes numbered 38,663, an increase 
of 24,347 in seven years; this increase being largely due to 
the horde of negroes from the near-by States, whose oppor- 
tunities for acquiring a knowledge of any occupation save 
that of manual labor of the simplest form had been limited. 
The following table will show the situation at a glance. It 
is formed upon statistics collected by Dr. Franklin B. 
Hough, though it does not include by any means every one 
of the interesting details made public by him. 1 

White. Negro. 

Population SS.327 38,663 

Owners of Real Estate 6.485 1,399 

Renters of Real Estate 8,895 4,595 

Voters 13,294 6,(> 

Married couples 14,147 5,509 

Children of school age 21,447 10,2415 

Children in public schools 5,34!' 450 

Children in private schools 5,352 232 

Unable to read, over 15 years 1,812 11,025 

Unable to write, over 15 years 2,150 12,1 

In government service 12,690 B22 

In personal service 2,122 3,647 

In trade and nuance 2,052 

Owning and working land 140 24-". 

In arts and mechanics 4,503 577 

Laborers, etc 2,460 3,1 

Churches 43 14 

From the figures in this table, particularly those relating 
to illiteracy, may be obtained some idea of the character of 
the population which was to evolve into the people who 
constitute cue third of the inhabitants of the District to-day. 



'Special Report, Commissioner of Education, pp. 38 18. 



113 J The Negro in the District of Columbia. 21 

The community in which they had found a home was 
divided in its sentiments toward the negroes, as it included 
those who had found at Washington a field for a thorough 
test of their ideas of philanthropy, those whose sentiments 
against the negroes had been intensified by their helplessness 
in the face of the legislation, which they believed was likely 
to inure only to the disadvantage of the capital, and those 
who cared neither for the whites nor for the negroes except 
as possibilities for the furtherance or blocking of their 
designs. The swarms of adventurers who flocked to Wash- 
ington in the closing years of the war and later, belonging 
to the class of whites which found its most congenial 
home there, were not of a character likely to benefit the 
mass of ignorance, which found little sympathy among the 
older residents. Even the negroes themselves had their dis- 
tinctions, not always well defined, perhaps, but yet capable 
of being classed broadly as of those who had been free 
before the war, those who had been liberated in 1862, and 
those who had entered the District as fugitives or as con- 
trabands of war. 

To deal with these diverse elements so as to make them 
of value to the community, instead of causing them to be- 
come drawbacks, was a problem requiring all the tact, 
wisdom and judgment of statesmanship. To its solution, 
however, were too frequently brought partisanship and enthu- 
siasm lacking reason or experience; and when the move- 
ments of the past generation are calmly reviewed, the only 
conclusion is that of astonishment that the negroes, in spite 
of dissensions among themselves, neglect or hostility on the 
part of some of the whites, and short-sighted efforts in their 
behalf by would-be friends, have reached the advanced posi- 
tion in which some are able to maintain themselves to-dav. 



II. 

APPLYING THE LEVER. 

If the negroes in the District before the war can be said 
to have been remarkable in any respect, they were so in 
their desire for education; but in this they received com- 
paratively little encouragement from the authorities. Indeed, 
the expansion of population consequent upon the war was 
necessary to make the white public school system of the 
capital an important factor in municipal life. Although the 
movement for the public instruction of children had begun 
in 1805 by trustees, with Thomas Jefferson as their presi- 
dent, many causes contributed to its unpopularity, as shown 
in 1840 in the attendance of 776 children upon private 
schools and but 213 upon public ones, and in the expendi- 
ture of but $257,721.74 for the system during the eight 
years immediately preceding the war. Whatever benefits 
were to be derived from the system, though, were not 
extended to the Free negroes, and at the outset they were 
obliged to depend mostly upon their own resources for 
acquiring knowledge, supplemented by the efforts of earnest 
men and women, who labored principally in the Sunday 
schools, where provision was made for negro children. 
With an energy surprising, when viewed against the back- 
ground of their antecedents, the negroes determined to 
gratify their thirst for knowledge, and within a few months 
after the first two public school-houses had been built the 
first school for negroes was opened in 1807. 

It was built by three men. recently emerged from slavery, — 
George Bell, Nicholas Franklin, and M< ses Liverpool, and 
was taught by a white man named 1 .owe. Others were 
started later, the occasional admission of a negro t<< a white 
private school not apparently meeting the requirements of 
the case; an attempt at a free school was even made, and 



115] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 23 

after the line of demarcation between the whites and negroes 
had been for the first time sharply drawn in the Sunday 
schools, the number of private schools for negroes increased 
and their scope widened, until, at the outbreak of the war, 
when the negro population of school age was 3172, it is 
estimated that 1200 were in the schools. Though white 
teachers at first were the principal teachers, intelligent negro 
men and women gradually took their places, until the 
instruction by the whites was limited to such schools as 
that of Father Vanlomen, in Georgetown. Their schools 
ranged from the mere primary ones to those in which the 
higher branches, French and music, were taught, and the 
prospectus of one of the latter displays the spirit which 
animated such undertakings. " The object of this academy," 
wrote Arabella C. Jones in her prospectus in 1852, "is of 
great importance, particularly to those who are devoid of 
schools in their vicinity, and also to society at large. Here 
the poor are educated gratuitously, the orphans clothed, 
educated and a good trade given them. Females in this 
age are naturally destined to become either mothers of 
families or household servants. As mothers, is it not neces- 
sary that they should be skilled in habits of industry and 
modesty, in order to transmit it to posterity? As domestics, 
should they not be tutored to the virtues of honesty, integ- 
rity and sobriety? Last, though not least, many of our 
citizens of color are emigrating to Liberia, and it is neces- 
sary, as well-wishers of our race, that our children be well 
educated, in order to impart their knowledge to the illit- 
erate." 

This was originally quoted by M. B. Goodwin, who 
has preserved for the future student the story of the labors 
of the founders of the negroes' educational system at the 
capital and of such pioneers as William Costin, Louise 
Parke Costin, Henry Smothers, John F. Cook. Myrtilla 
Miner, Arabella Jones, Mary Wormley, Alexander Hays. 
John TT. Fleet. Charles H. Middleton, and other-, who in 
spite of hardships, drawbacks and at times persecution of 



24 The Negro in the District of Columbia- [110 

one shade or another, struggled persistently toward the light, 
and justified the conclusion that " it is worthy of observa- 
tion, also, that in no case has a colored school ever failed 
for the want of scholars. The parents were always glad to 
send their children, and the children were always ready to 
go, even when too poor to be decently fed or clothed. 
When a school failed it was for want of money, and not for 
want of appreciation of the benefits of education." 

This eagerness was marked when, in 1862, emancipation 
of the slaves was followed by the first step taken 
toward the real emancipation of the class of which the 
slaves formed a small proportion. The question of the 
public support of schools for the negroes had been mo< 
in 1848 and 1858, but had never reached any definite shape 
until coincidentally with the debates on the freeing of the 
slaves were considered measures for the education of their 
race, and within a little more than a month after the act of 
emancipation of April 16, 1862, its fit complement was had 
in the acts initiating a public school system for the negroes. 
This movement was remarkable in more respects than one. 
In the first place it was not born of legislative sentiment 
alone, for, upon the development of opposition, energetic 
negroes, including some who were at the time interested in 
private schools, went to the trouble of collecting statistics 
proving that their demands were reasonable; the □ 
striking fact evolved, perhaps, being that to which Senator 
Grimes alluded on April 20, that the negroes were paying 
$3600 taxes upon $650,000 worth of real estate, and that 
they were sharing the tax of ten cents on every Si o 
devoted to the support of white schools exclusively. Another 
curious feature was the enactment of a school law for the 
county section of the District one day in advance of that 
for the eities of Washington and Ge iwn, inasmuch as 

an effort to establish a white public school system in the 
county in [856 had proved ineffective because it was not 



Special Report, Commissioner of Education, l v 7i, p. 222. 



117 J The Negro in the District of Columbia- 25 

ratified at an election in which women were allowed to vote 
and in which they cast their ballots generally with the 
opposition. The act of May 20, 1862, provided for a tax of 
one-eighth of one per cent, upon the property of negroes 
outside the cities for the support of schools for their 
children; and that of May 21, 1862, ordered that ten per 
cent, of the tax levied in the two cities upon negro property 
should be devoted to negro public schools. In the county 
the funds were to be under the control of seven trustees 
for all the schools, and in the cities under the control of 
the trustees of the white schools. Both acts proved ineffec- 
tive, even though, to set at rest all apprehension about the 
disposition of the separate fund in the cities, three trustees 
for the negro schools in Washington and Georgetown were 
appointed by the Secretary of the Interior under an act of 
July 11, 1862; and in 1864 another act became the funda- 
mental law for the whole District. This provided that the 
authorities should set apart each year from all the funds 
received for educational purposes " such proportionate part 
thereof as the number of colored children between the ages 
of six and seventeen years in the respective cities bear to 
the whole number thereof, for the purpose of establishing 
and sustaining public schools in said cities for the education 
of colored children," and a similar arrangement was made 
for the county schools. In the two years following the 
original act for the cities but $736.86 had been credited to 
the separate school fund, and it was not until March, 1864, 
that the first public school for negroes was opened in a 
negro church, and not until the next year that the first 
building for school purposes only was occupied. The local 
authorities still construing the act in a manner different 
from the advocates of the negroes, Congress, by act of 
July 23, 1866, ruled that the act of 1864 should be so c 
^trued " as to require the cities of Washington and Geo- 
town to pay over to the trustees of the colored schools of 
said cities such a proportionate part of all moneys received 
or expended for school or educational purposes in said 



26 'l'ln Negro in the District of Columbia. [118 

cities, including- the cost of sites, buildings, improvements, 
furniture, books, and all other expenditures on account of 
schools, as the colored children, between the ages of six and 
seventeen years in the respective cities, bear to the whole 
number of children, white and colored, between the same 
ages; that the money shall be considered due and payable 
to said trustees on the first day of October of each vear; 
and if not then paid over to them, interest at the rate of ten 
per centum per annum on the amount unpaid may be de- 
manded and collected." It was also arranged that contri- 
butions from persons disposed to aid in the education of 
the negro should be kept distinct from the general school 
fund. 

While as late as November, 1867, the trustees of the negro 
schools were complaining that they had been hampered by 
the refusal of the corporation of Washington to execute the 
acts of Congress relating to the schools, affairs in the county 
had progressed much more smoothly, especially after an 
appropriation by Congress, on July 28, 1866, of $10,000 to 
purchase sites and erect the necessary buildings; and the 
negroes' schools fared as well as the whites', an estimate of 
expenditures from 1864 to 1870 showing that the former 
had received $43,057.73 and the latter S50.721.91, and the 
former class of pupils having really the better accommoda- 
tions. 

During the earlier years of the war. when the migration 
i" the capital of contrabands and refugees began, efforts 
wrre made to reach them in S( The first school 

devoted exclusively to slave children was opened in the 
county in August, [861, by a negro woman, but the nexl 
year the American Tract Society began its work among the 
contrabands, and its example was followed by the American 
Tract Society of Boston, the American Missionary Society, 
the Pennsylvania Freedmen's Relief Association, Volunteer 
Association, the Philadelphia Friends' Freedmen's 
Relief Association, the African Civilization Society, the 
Reformed Presbyterian Mission, the Old School Presby- 



119] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 27 

teriau Mission, the New York Freedmen's Relief Associa- 
tion, the New England Freedmen's Aid Commission, the 
New England Freedmen's Aid Society, the New England 
Friends' Mission, the Washington Christian Union, the 
Universalists of Maine, and others. Their work was carried 
on in the basements of negro churches, in temporary bar- 
racks and other makeshifts, and extended to men, women 
and children. At first there were dissensions, which, how- 
ever, were removed, and finally through the efforts of A. E. 
Newton, who was, in 1867, appointed superintendent of the 
negro public schools by the trustees, the cooperation of all 
the interests was secured and the way was paved for the 
public schools continuing the work of the relief societies, 
when all but one withdrew their aid in 1868. Great aid was 
given at this period by the Freedmen's Bureau, which, not 
limiting its assistance to schools for primary instruction, did 
much toward the establishing of Floward University, which 
was incorporated March 2, 1867, and in which no distinction 
was made on account of race, color or sex, though it had 
originally been intended for the education of negro men 
alone. 1 

Some of these schools were open by day and some by 
night, the total number of day schools in May, 1864, includ- 
ing one public school, being 12, with 23 teachers and 1200 
pupils, and in 1867 being 62, with 80 teachers and 4228 
pupils, the trustees of the public schools at that time con- 
trolling 5 schools, with 7 teachers and 450 pupils, and the 
total sum received from the North between 1863 and 1867 
amounting to $135,000. At this time the extremes of the 
negro race were represented in the schools, and while in one 
private institution in 1868, of fifty pupils, 16 were taking 
music lessons, two years before Miss Susan Walker had 
been subjected to indignities in the conduct of her school 
which will bear comparison with the violence of "a set of 



1 Wayland Seminary, an institution still influential, was organized 
daring this period. 



- s Tin Negro in tin District of Columbia [120 

ragamuffins'' of 1835, me annoyances of negro children 
from white youths at a subsequent period, and the treatment 
of some of those connected with Howard University in 
its earlier history. The chronicler tells it in this simple 
language: "December 1 the school was opened in one 
of the barrack buildings, and soon Miss Walker had 
under training, six hours a day, about 70 scholars, mostly 
women, who were taught various kinds of plain sewing, she 
preparing the work for them, cutting the garments, etc., in 
the evening. As these women could not afford to take the 
time even for instruction, unless receiving some remunera- 
tion, Miss Walker adopted the plan of paying them pro- 
portionately from the articles of clothing made. In Sep- 
tember of the next year, 1866, a regiment of cavalry took 
up its quarters near her school, causing her great annoy- 
ance and much anxiety, as well as disturbing the school 
work. The officer in command gave her assurance of the 
fullest protection, but the soldiers finally broke into the 
school-house and destroyed or took away private property 
and private papers, — a summary way of declaring their creed 
on the subject of educating contrabands." 1 

The conferring of the suffrage upon the negroes and the 
accession to the mayoralty, in June, 1868, of one of their 
particular friends, was followed by further agitation in Con- 
gress for their schools, and in the summer of that year the 
Senate, under a misunderstanding of the wishes of the 
negroes, passed a bill abolishing the offices of separate 
trustees, and the matter bring forgotten in the lapse of 
several months, the same measure was passed by the House 
in February, i860. Immediately the negroes were aroused, 
and they flocked to their old rallying points, the churches, 
and set forth their wishes in strong resolutions. They 
feared thai the removal of negro trustees would bring about 
the same condition of affairs as had made the act of July 
u. [862, a necessity, and that the existence of the schools 



'Special Report, Commissioner of Education, 1871, p. 



121] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 29 

would depend upon local politics alone. There was sonic 
little hesitation about taking this stand, because some 
thought that the negroes might be considered as opposing 
Congress; but the final resolutions looked to a change in 
the whole system, which was thought to reflect distinctions 
in race and color. In view of the position of the negroes 
of the two cities, President Johnson vetoed the measure, and 
called the attention of Congress to the statement that the 
trustees for the negro schools, two of whom were negroes, 
had given satisfaction to their constituency, and therefore 
he saw no reason for transferring their duties to others. It 
was at this time, when the negroes had begun to be promi- 
nent in the police and fire departments of the city and in 
other phases of municipal life, that the question of mixed 
schools was incontinently agitated, culminating in a debate 
in Congress in the early spring of 1871, in which the effort 
was unsuccessfully made to remove all restrictions on 
account of color from all the public schools, and which also 
produced the statement in the Senate that for eighteen 
months or two years the board of trustees for the negro 
schools had been in a controversy among themselves, 
"fighting constantly at their meetings," the latter clause 
not meaning, of course, that they had come to blows. 1 

Under the territorial government which followed this 
debate, some modifications were made in the administration 
of the negro schools. Under an act of the Legislative 
Assembly of March 3, 1873, George F. T. Cook, who had 
been chosen in 1868 superintendent for the negro schools 
and who still occupies that position, was appointed super- 
intendent by the Governor, and his report began to appear 
with that of the superintendent of the white schools, the 
trustees were increased in number to nine, and the acts of 
Assembly laying a tax for education, instead of specially 
designating the amounts for the two systems, read " for the 
support of public schools, including colored schools," though 



Congressional Globe, 1871, pp. 1054-1061. 



30 Tht Negro in the District of Columbia. [122 

in expending the funds the proportion of white and negro 
pupils tu the whole school population appears to have 
remained as a basis. The abolition of the experiment in 
1874 produced other changes. At that time there were 
more than forty school trustees for four different systems of 
schools, — twenty for the white schools of Washington, five 
for the white schools of Georgetown, nine for the m 
schools of Washington and Georgetown, and seven for the 
white and negro schools of the county. The three Commis- 
sioners of the District appointed by the President consoli- 
dated these boards in August, 1874, into one board of 
fifteen members, increased, however, in the next month to 
nineteen, to the great benefit of the schools resulting from a 
uniformity of supervision, discipline, text-books and rneth. ids 
of instruction, there being some slight modifications to suit 
peculiar conditions; and while the white superintendent 
was given oversight of all the white schools and die negro 
schools of the county, the negro schools of the two cities 
remained under their own superintendent. The same admin- 
istration continued when the form of government for the 
District crystallized in 1878 into its existing form; but since 
July 15, 1882, the board of trustees has been composed of 
but nine members, three of them being negroes; and from 
one of seven divisions in 1871). the growth of the negro 
school had, by February, 180,1, made necessary three divi- 
sions, with a supervising principal in each, the eighth divi- 
sion having been created in the session of [882 83. 

I Miring the thirty years from the time when Congress 
first took a hand in the negro school affairs, they have 
advanced almost as rapidly as the white schools in points 
of attendance, administration and methods of instrncti.ni. 
Though the first teacher of a negro public school in the 
District was a negro woman, with a white woman as an 
assistant, the problem about the proper kind of teachers was 
at first similar to that presented in the negro private 
schools before die war. In the first ten years of the system 
the teachers were in a great degree white women from the 



123] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 31 

North; but the change from white teachers to negro was 
begun in the sixties, in 1869 the fifty schools being equally 
divided among them. At that time but eighteen of the 
negro teachers were natives of the District. 1 At present all 
negro schools have teachers of the negro race. The 
schools originally of a primary character gradually enlarged 
their field; between 1871 and 1875 there was a preparatory 
course advanced beyond the grammar schools, and in 1876 
the colored High School graduated its first pupils, and has 
since sent its graduates to Cornell, Howard, Harvard uni- 
versities, the University of .Michigan and Oberlin College; 
while the Xormal School, which began operations a few 
years later, has furnished material for teachers of the local 
schools. The teachers of reconstruction times had realized 
the necessity for some sort of manual training among their 
pupils, and this idea was later incorporated in the public 
school system and in the institutions for higher education. 
Drawing was introduced into the public schools in 1875, 
and the establishing in 1880 by Mrs. Woodbury of the 
First Mission School for cooking, with the subsequent 
organization at Washington of the National Industrial Asso- 
ciation, gave an impetus to this most important branch of 
teaching. In 1883 industrial training became a part of the 

1 A curious commentary upon the situation at this time is had in 
the circular of the trustees, issued in Septemher, 1869. They said : 
" It is our determination to elevate the character of the schools by 
insisting on a high standard of qualifications in the teachers. This 
can be done only by employing the best teachers that our money 
will procure irrespective of color. While we think it right to give 
preference in our schools to colored teachers, their qualifications 
being equal, yet we deem it a violation of our official oath to employ 
inferior teachers when superior ones can be had for the same 
money. It is no discredit to admit that the number of colored 
teachers, at least in this District, who can compete successfully 
with those of the hitherto more favored class, especially those from 
the Northern States, is at present small. When our young men 
and women shall have enjoyed equal advantages for a sufficient 
length of time, we may expect this will be changed." Special 
Report, Commissioner of Education, p. 257. 



32 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [124 

curriculum of Howard University, and the demands of this 
branch of instruction have so increased that a separate 
building is now devoted to it for the pupils of the prepara- 
tory and normal departments. The outfit includes a car- 
penter shop, tin shop, bookbindery, tailor and shoe shops, 
kitchen, and printing office, from which is issued monthly 
The Howard Standard. The other departments of the insti- 
tution, which in 1892 had 562 pupils, are theological, medi- 
cal, law, and collegiate, the students being confined to no 
race, sex or color, but including whites, negroes, West 
Indians, and coming from such extremes as Africa and 
Japan. 1 

Manual training was introduced into the High School in 
1886, where also at present the boys have the advantage of 
a military drill, and instruction in physical culture is given 
in the primary and grammar grades. The system of manual 
training as extended through the different grades embraces 
drawing, clay modeling, paper cutting, cooking, carpentry, 
turning and metal work, and it has not only been of great 
advantage to the pupils, but the results have demonstrate. 1 
the capabilities of the negro race in this direction to the 
satisfaction of those who have watched its growth." 

The schools which, with the assistance of the relief soci- 
eties, had pupils of three generations at once, have evolved 
into a system devoted entirely to children, and from one 
school, with furt}' pupils in 1864, the negro schools have 



' An account of the history of industrial training at Howard Uni- 
versity, by Prof. W. P. Mitchell, is given on pp. 830, S3] of Part II 
of the publication just issued by the Bureau of Education on 
" Industrial and Manual Training in Public Schools." 

2 Isaac Edwards Clarke, in commenting on their exhibition, said : 
'The step from the condition of their original African barbarian 
ancestors to the present development of these children of American 
freedom is a long one. and one the study of which, of interest to 
all students of ethnology, must be of surpassing interest to those 
who hope for tin' progress of all mankind. How much of this 
evolution is to be attributed to the result of the two centuries of 
training and association of these native Africans ami their children 



125] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 33 

increased to more than two hundred schools, with 14,490 
pupils, while the attendance upon private schools has de- 
creased from 1200 to about 650, with 410 in parochial 
schools. The trustees, though, have failed to be entirely 
satisfied about the work which is being done for the educa- 
tion of the negroes, and the president of the board in 1891 
wrote as follows on this point: 

" The seventh and eighth divisions embracing the colored 
schools of the city have been a subject of serious thought 
with the whole board of trustees. The question has been 
asked by the best class of colored citizens and by others 
who feel a deep interest in the success of their schools, 'Are 
we getting the best results obtainable for the expenditure of 
means?' From the best information that I, as the president 
of the board of trustees, have been able to obtain, I am 
clearly of the opinion that we do not. I have been visited 
by and have consulted with the most intelligent and edu- 
cated of the colored citizens, with whom it has been a subject 
of anxious thought. ' What,' say they, ' shall we do to 
improve our schools? We know that we are not obtaining 
the best results; we are not abreast of the white schools, nor 
do we yet expect to be; but we are too far behind them, and 
such should not be the case.' We have intelligent, earnest 
men in the board of trustees, representing more nearly the 
colored schools, who give their time and personal super- 
vision to the schools of their respective divisions. Yet the 
work is not what it should be. There must be a reason for 
it. Some of the supervising principals and teachers of 



with their white masters under the hard conditions of slavery, and 
how much is solely due to the inspiring influence of freedom during 
the past quarter of a century, is a problem in equity, for the relative 
proportion of credit due to each were not easy justly to apportion. 
It may not be denied, however, that the average slave of 1860 was, 
in all that makes the civilization of a race possible, far in advance 
of his savage kin in Africa. If in nothing else he was advantaged, 
he had in the acquisition of English as his native language, gained 
a priceless possession, a master-key to all knowledge." Industrial 
and Manual Training in Public Schools, pp. 248-249. 



X 



34 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [126 

colored schools are men fully capable by both education and 
culture to lift these schools to a higher standard than they 
have yet attained. But there seems to be a something 
somewhere that prevents it. What is it? I submit this 
question to the consideration of the Commissioners of the 
District." 

As far back as 1873 the trustees, recognizing that hu- 
manity as well as public interests demanded that provision 
should be made for educating those who had been given the 
responsibilities of citizenship, discovered that the work of 
the schools was hampered by home influences, the parents 
being unable to discipline their children properly or to 
supplement the studies at school with home instruction; 
and in spite of nearly twenty years of labor, somewhat similar 
conditions were the subject of comment by the superinten- 
dent of the negro schools in 1891. This opinion was to the 
effect that difficulty in training the children to the correct 
use of language was due to " the large and constantly oppos- 
ing forces of the home and its association." And to the 
absence of a cultured home, which is not the growth of a 
generation, is traced the disproportionate amount of illit- 
eracy among the negroes in spite of the equipment of their 
public schools, the conduct of night schools during certain 
months, the gradual introduction of free books in the dif- 
ferent grades, the gathering of libraries in the different 
schools, aggregating 3000 volumes, through the individual 
efforts of teachers and pupils, and the general results which 
should be expected from additions each year to the com- 
munity < if graduates of the high school. At times the school 
authorities squint toward compulsory education, which is 
permitted under the act of 1864; but this lias never been 
executed because the attendance upon both the white and 
negro schools has been fully equal to the provisions for it, 
and since the two systems have been operating with as little 
friction as possible, the number of negroes in the schools has 
been in the same proportion to their portion of the popu- 
lation of school age as the attendance upon the white 



127] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 



35 



schools has been to white children between the ages of 6 
and 17 years. 1 

In the report of the Commissioner of Education for 1886 
the fact was noted that while the attendance upon the white 
schools was maintained in all the grades, that upon the negro 
schools diminished as the grades ascended. This gives the 
clue to a partial explanation of the failure of the negro 
population to be benefited by the system equally with the 
whites, and behind it is the bed-rock reason, — the poverty 
of parents and the necessity for many of the children to aid 
in some way in supporting the family preventing them from 
pursuing the whole course and even from remaining in 
school during a year at a time. Figures of the police census 
of June, 1892, throw a flood of light upon this situation. 
In that year the white population was 173,610, of whom 
36,272 were of school age, 30,085 of whom were at school 
and 2948 were earning wages. But the negro population, 
84,821, furnished a school population of 18,726, with 13,041 



1 The following table is a good basis for a comparison of the sta- 
tistics of white and negro schools since 1S80. In the white schools' 
statistics are included the negro pupils in the county schools, their 
number being as 1 to 23 of the whites, and the Normal School is 
omitted from the negro statistics. 



ing 


Pupils. 


Teachers. 


"3f5 
— - 

>* 


White. 


NegTo. 


Total. 


White. 


Negro. 


Total. 


1880 


18,378 


8,061 


26,439 


306 


128 


434 


1881 


19,153 


8,146 


27,299 


327 


134 


461 


1882 


19,031 


8,289 


27,320 


342 


143 


485 


1883 


19,836 


8,710 


28,546 


358 


147 


505 


1884 


01 991 


9,167 


30,388 


371 


154 


525 


1885 


21,267 


9,598 


30,865 


393 


162 


555 


1886 


22,198 


10,138 


32,336 


421 


174 


595 


1887 


23,073 


10,345 


33,418 


438 


182 


620 


1888 


23,810 


11,040 


:m,s:><i 


466 


188 


654 


1889 


24.594 


11,170 


35,764 


496 


197 


693 


1890 


25,468 


11,438 


36,906 


534 


211 


745 


1891 


26,354 


L2,132 


38,386 


569 


226 


796 


1892 


30,085 


13,041 


43,126 


612 


283 


895 



36 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [128 

at school and 2870 earning wages. The fluctuations in 
attendance, though, seem to be lessening each year, and the 
advance in material welfare of the population indicated 
thereby may so extend as to place the attendance through 
the whole system on a plane with that in the white schools. 

Lack of culture and wealth among the great body of the 
negro population may account in part for the inability of 
the negro children as a class to be equal in literacy to white 
children of the same age; but another drawback may be 
found in the teachers. More than once have the trustees 
made a point of commending the attainments and capabilities 
of the present superintendent, and in 1879 me Y hzd this to 
say in commenting upon the satisfactory condition of the 
negro schools: 

" Nor can it occasion surprise that such should be the 
case to those who have acquainted themselves with the 
extraordinary ability and unremitting zeal exhibited by the 
superintendent of the colored schools in the administration of 
the affairs of his peculiar department. To properly appre- 
ciate the high order of talent and the degree of industry 
which have characterized the performance of his official 
duties, it is to be borne in mind that his task, because of the 
former anomalous relations of the colored schools to the 
rest of the system, has, from its inception, been eminently 
creative and largely dependent for its successful accomplish- 
ment upon the resources of his unaided genius. To his 
personal efforts is to be attributed the rapid advance made, 
in recent years, by that department of our public schools 
and its entire harmony with the general scheme of instruc- 
tion." 1 

These qualities of the superintendent are his rightly by 
inheritance, and they are manifest in the comprehensive 
reports which he furnishes each year. He early realized the 
advantages to be derived from the opportunities for local 
training of the teachers for the local schools of their own 
color, but has not been backward in criticising imperfections 

1 Public School Report, 1878-79, p. 17. 



129] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 37 

in the Normal School results. A negro critic of his race, 
at a recent meeting, made this statement: "Make a colored 
girl a school-teacher, and when she draws her first month's 
salary she refuses to speak to other girls." This was an 
exaggerated statement of a germ of truth which finds par- 
tial confirmation in the report of 1889 of the principal of 
the Normal School. Her observation was that young negro 
girls too frequently chose teaching as a profession without 
due regard to its importance, and that their disappoint- 
ment about obtaining positions, resulting in their passion 
getting the better of their judgment, did not tend to " the 
moral elevation of either pupils or school." On this same 
line the superintendent, believing that the average product 
of the Normal School is good, has had occasion to observe 
in 1890 that the graduates lacked experience, and more or 
less " that more pronounced personal and moral character 
whose growth is conditioned by maturer years, and which, 
in itself, presents an embodiment of those virtues whose 
silent influences in the school-room contribute so largely to 
the proper bent of youthful character." 1 

These defects in the teaching class, however, are counter- 
acted in part by the enthusiasm of individuals, and in criti- 
cising existing conditions it must be remembered that hardly 
a generation has passed since the means of any public 
education were given the negro race in the District, and 
that the history of the race in this country before that time 
reveals very little of the mode of life which would be likely 
to produce either a teaching or a learning class; but the 
spectacle of elderly persons in the night schools, of news- 
boys seeking at odd moments to acquire at Howard Uni- 
versity the rudiments of an industrial training, and of pupils 
in the other schools bringing their breakfast to school in 
order to be prompt in attendance, not only indicates that the 
race has lost none of the eagerness for learning which char- 
acterized it in antebellum days, but also is full of promise 
of greater development of the schools in the future. 

'District Commissioners' Reports, 1889, p. 979; 1S90, p. 972; 1891, 
p. 910. 



III. 

STRIVING FOR EQUALITY. 

Under the old regime, free negroes in the District were 
affected not only indirectly by the laws referring to their 
kinsmen slaves, but also by special municipal legislation 
directed against themselves. The nine or ten o'clock curfew, 
though evaded at times, the provision in Georgetown 
against assemblages, though not rigidly enforced, the pro- 
hibition in Alexandria of separate places of worship, the 
hardships of registry and of the presentation of satisfactory 
evidence of freedom, and the limitation of license to engage 
in business, reflecting the feeling of citizens against migra- 
tion into the District of free negroes, were some of the 
evidences of the inequality before the law of negroes with 
whites, and were drawbacks to the possibility of negroes 
attaining the semblance of mental or material equality with 
the dominant race. 

The wholesale emancipation of the slaves had not in itself 
tended to benefit them materially, nor had it been of value 
to those who had previously been free, for the old restric- 
tions, bom of the custom of centuries or of the exigencies 
i if particular occasion, were still in force. The slave had 
become free, but neither he nor his brother had become a 
freeman either in the strict sense of the word or before the 
law. 

It was the purpose, though, of the negroes' advocates to 
correct, as far as possible by law, the remarkable fallacy 
of American institutions that all men are by nature equal, 
and in addition to making the slaves free, to make them and 
their fellows freemen. Senator Wilson had aimed at this 
in his bill of February, 1862, to abolish the black code. 
He was ceaseless in his activity, and finally found a shorter 
route to his desire, in the amendment which very appropri- 



131} The Negro in the District of Columbia. 



39 



ately he had added to the bill of Senator Grimes, providing 
for education of the negroes, which became a law May 21, 
1862, and which provided that all negroes in the District 
should be amenable to the same laws and ordinances as 
whites, that they should be tried for any offenses in the same 
manner as whites, and that upon conviction they should be 
liable to the same punishment, and all laws inconsistent with 
the act were repealed. So much was accomplished, in a 
few words, toward relieving the negro of the inequalities in 
case of his arrest; but it was only a beginning. As the 
admission of negro testimony had been varying, it was neces- 
sary to define and expand it more thoroughly than had been 
done in the emancipatory act, which in that particular case 
permitted the testimony of free or slave negroes; and 
accordingly, to Mr. Wilson's bill of July 12 was appended 
Mr. Sumner's motion that "in all judicial proceedings in 
the District of Columbia there shall be no exclusion of any 
witness on account of color," the principle which a few years 
later was extended to the federal courts of the country. 
The right to serve as jurors was not conferred until the 
passage of the omnibus bill of rights of March, 1869, which 
also gave the negroes the right to hold office, a complement 
to the right of suffrage given them several months pre- 
viously. 

But these were not all the measures urged upon Congress 
for the particular class who had become in more senses 
than one the proteges of the government. The tendency to 
distinguish against them in public conveyances, which has 
in more recent years found practical application in some 
quarters in separate cars for negroes, was manifest at that 
day. But the supports of this tendency were one by one 
cut away. The Washington and Alexandria Railroad Com- 
pany, wishing to extend its line into the District, came 
before Congress for an enlargement of its charter, and this 
enabled the Senate to amend the bill, which became law, 
March 3, 1863, so that no distinction against negroes should 
be made in the cars. In the meantime the far-seeing capi- 



40 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [132 

talist, recognizing the advantages of obtaining valuable fran- 
chises on easy terms, had begun to operate street cars in the 
city, and the Washington and Georgetown Company, which 
was chartered in 1862, in deference to prevailing sentiments 
of the whites and the demands of negroes, had provided 
separate cars for the latter. This was one of the distinctions 
which Mr. Sumner would abolish, and he saw his chance 
for a beginning when the Metropolitan Railroad Company 
came forward for a charter. This was granted July 1, 1864, 
but it carried with it a provision that in operating the road 
there should be no regulation excluding any persons from 
any car on accou.it of color. This was the wedge upon 
which he labored for a few more months, and although his 
efforts were unsuccessful when he first attempted to apply 
the same rule to the Washington and Georgetown Rail- 
road, he was victorious in his second essay, and when the 
Metropolitan charter was amended March 3, 1865, it had a 
rider inserted applying the non-exclusion principle to even- 
other railroad in the District 

The culmination of this legislation was the municipal act 
of June 10, 1869, which prohibited distinction on account of 
color in places of public amusement, hotels and similar quasi 
public resorts, and it must be said that by that time the 
impression seemed to prevail among the negroes, particu- 
larly those who had not been inhabitants of the District for 
many years, that if any distinction was shown it was against 
the whites. 

There is no doubt that both parties in Congress had their 
extremists, and on a careful reading of some of the debates 
one is forced to the conclusion that while, on the one hand. 
if such a thing had been possible, some would have passed 
a law changing the color of the skin of the negroes to 
white, on the other hand would have been found others 
willing to enact a law that the special advocates of the 
negroes should change their complexion to black. The 
negroes may have been unanimous in their desire for such 
special legislation, but that the leaders were at times mis- 



133] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 41 

taken in their zeal is apparent from the incident of 1868-69, 
regarding the public schools trustees, and the debate on the 
separate street cars showed that even among those who were 
specially friendly toward the negroes was not always a 
thorough understanding as to the most expedient course of 
action. Again, in 1871, the radical efforts for equality 
found expression in the bill providing that " no distinction 
on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude 
shall be made in the admission of pupils to any of the 
schools under the control of the Board of Education, or in 
the mode of education or treatment of pupils in such 
schools." The debate on this bill, which was introduced too 
late to become of value, as the change in the form of gov- 
ernment for the District was about to be made, illustrated 
the extremes of opinion on the subject, and proceeded far 
enough to effect the elision of the idea of mixed schools by 
an amendment substituting for the words " the admission of 
pupils " the words " in providing the means for the educa- 
tion of pupils." 

Since that time the real struggle for equality has been 
continued. When upon the District were conferred the 
rights of territorial government, much of the time of Con- 
gress had been devoted to legislation affecting the negroes, 
with the result that according to law they had equal rights 
with whites at the polls, in the courts, in the street cars, 
in places of public amusement and entertainment; the 
provision for the instruction of their young by the govern- 
ment was upon the same basis as that for the white children, 
and in one institution, the protege of the Freedman's Bureau, 
was absolutely no distinction of race, sex or color. This 
condition of affairs was advantageous for them, but yet con- 
tained an element of disadvantage. The theory of the legis- 
lation in their behalf may have been perfect. It may have 
seemed only logical, in accordance with the accepted prin- 
ciple underlying American institutions, to clothe the new 
element in American life with all the rights and privileges 
hitherto enjoyed exclusively by the whites. But an appar- 



42 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [134 

ently logical conclusion may easily be demolished when it 
is discovered that the premises are wrong. Just as the 
original idea of immigration to this country, eminently 
proper at the time, has been perverted to such a degree that 
the welfare and happiness of great cities, if not of the whole 
country, are threatened until it is recognized that under 
existing circumstances the idea has an element of radical 
wrong in it; so, while the changed conditions of negro life 
at the capital might justify every act protecting them in 
their civil rights, the same act twenty -five or thirty years age 
may have been most unwise and evil in its tendency. 

The safest legislation, the legislation most likely to benefit 
the greater number in a civilized community, is that which 
incorporates the sentiments of that community, and r.ot 
those of persons who reason that because a law works no 
ill in one section of the country it will be beneficial in every 
other section no matter how the economic and sociological 
conditions may differ. A premature law, that is, a law 
forced upon a people instead of springing from them, may 
not always be pernicious in its effects, but it is a dangerous 
experiment That the equalizing before the law of the 
negroes with the whites in the District did not result in 
greater disaster than the outgrowth of the experiment in 
suffrage, is due not only to the comparatively well disposed 
nature of the new population in spite of their previous dis- 
advantages, but also to the fact that influence of the weight 
of government at the capital, with its many ramifications, 
was a tremendous power against action, had the desire been 
formulated by any mass of citizens to bring the law into 
disrepute. At the same time the imposition by Congress of 
such legislation upon the community against the wishes of 
the native white portion of it, who knew from experience 
and long association the character of their negro neighbors. 
did not inspire them to aid the negroes in their evolution, 
and served also to harden the distinctions in personal rela- 
tions which had been drawn as soon as the negroes had 
ceased to be a comparatively insignificant element in the life 
of the capital. 



135] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 43 

In the early days at Washington the two races had been 
nearer each other in various ways than they were in i860. 
Their separation before the war cannot be said to have been 
due primarily to the difference of color or to prejudice aris- 
ing therefrom, though it may have been hastened thereby. 
The transfer of the colored people from their quarters in 
the white churches and Sunday schools to their own edifices 
was not solely the result of the alarm of the whites after 
1 83 1, but was according to a natural tendency of the 
negroes, just as of any other class in a city, to associate more 
and more with those who were bound to them by a com- 
munity of race, social and material interests, when unusual 
influences do not prevail. The same principle has obtained 
since the war among the mass of negroes, though seeming 
contradictions, which may be explained by the presence of 
a mixed population in the District, have been made at 
times and exist at present. The failure of a negro to obtain 
admission to the law department of a white institution has 
not interfered with his subsequent appointment as a special 
attorney under the District government. The controversy 
over his application for admission to the law school was 
paralleled by that which arose over the pioneer attempt of a 
negro to become a member of the local typographical union. 
He, however, was ultimately successful, and his example was 
followed by others of his race, while to-day the barbers' 
assembly, in which no line is drawn, has a negro as 
its executive. It is also stated that when several years 
ago the white printers upon cne of the papers at the 
capital went on a strike, the members of the colored washer- 
women's union did what they could to aid them by practi- 
cally boycotting in their small way some of the tradesmen 
who patronized the newspaper. 

There is probably less distinction between the races among 
some bodies of organized labor than in any other of the 
many relations of life. In the professions the lines seem to 
be strictly drawn, as a rule, and this may be illustrated by an 
incident of quite recent date. For some years negroes have 



44 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [136 

at intervals attempted to become members of the Medical 
Society of the District. They have been unsuccessful. The 
latest candidate of prominence was Dr. Forman J. Shadd, a 
light-complexioned negro, bom in the District, a graduate 
of Floward University, house surgeon at the Freedman's 
Hospital and lecturer on medical jurisprudence. In the 
spring of 1891 the members of the Medical Society received 
the following anonymous message on postal cards: 

" Dr. F. J. Shadd, resident physician at the Freedman's 
Hospital, is a candidate for membership in the Medical 
Society. The election will occur Wednesday, April 1. 
Dr. Shadd is well and favorably known as a man and a 
physician. Indirectly he has furnished much interesting 
material for the Society. It will be a just and manly act to 
elect him. His friends are urged to be present." 

On some of the postal cards was added in lead pencil the 
single word " colored," and this in part was the reason for 
an unusually large attendance of the members at the meet- 
ing, which was expected to be stormy, but the full pro- 
ceedings of which were protected by its secret session. 
Nineteen persons were presented for membership, and of 
these eleven were admitted. With one exception the names 
of all those whose applications were refused were placed on 
the list below that of Dr. Shadd. Five were graduates of 
Howard University, and the vote on their application 
ranged from 16 to 29 in favor of them to 23 to 37 against 
them. One of the members explained afterward that the 
failure of the other Howard graduates to enter was due to 
a feeling that at the next election their votes would be given 
for Dr. Shadd. Commenting on the result, Dr. Shadd said: 
" The result is not unexpected. Several years ago two 
• ither colored men were voted down by the Society, which is 
a sort of close corporation. I did think, though, that the 
question of admission would depend upon a man's merit and 
attainments, and not upon his color. Yes, I shall keep on 
applying until T am elected a member. I know nothing 
about the anonymous postal card." The matter did not 



137] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 45 

really end there, but came before Congress in April, 1892, 
when the District Committee of the Senate was instructed 
to investigate into the truth of the report that the Medical 
Society discriminated against colored physicians or phy- 
sicians who had been or might be teachers in Howard Uni- 
versity. 1 Dr. Thos. G. Smith, the corresponding secretary 
of the Society, and Dr. Charles B. Purvis, the physician at 
the Freedman's Hospital, were heard by a sub-committee. 
From die report of the committee it is learned that Dr. 
Smith said frankly " that the color line was drawn tacitly in 
the Medical Society, and that no colored man can be 
elected a member. This result was not reached by any for- 
mal action in respect to color, but simply resulted from the 
fact that when the name of a colored man was up the indi- 
vidual members exercised their privilege of voting against 
him, as they would vote against a white man who might, for 
any reason, be objectionable to them. 

" Dr. Smith said that the Society could not and did 
not attempt to keep colored men from practising the pro- 
fession of medicine, but did keep them from the meetings 
at which papers were read and medical matters discussed in 
a semi-social manner. The fear was that the presence of 
colored members would introduce discord in the meetings, 
and that so many members, especially among the older ones, 
would withdraw that the Society would be broken up. 
Objection was also made to both white and colored 
graduates of the Howard University Medical School, because 
they attended a school where the fees were lower than at 
other schools in the District. 

" Dr. Purvis testified that some twenty years ago he and 
Dr. Augusta applied for membership in the Medical Society. 
There was a favorable report by the censors, on their appli- 
cations, but the vote against them was overwhelming. Since 
then Dr. Cook and Dr. Francis, both colored graduates of 
the Medical School of M :higan University, had been re- 



1 Senate Report No. 1050, 52nd Congress. 1st Session. 



46 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [138 

jected by the Society, as also had Dr. Shadd, a reputable 
colored physician. 

" Inside the Society, Dr. Purvis continued, there is an asso- 
ciation, or committee, to regulate the ethics of the profes- 
sion. No colored man can belong to this association. The 
Medical Society licenses the colored physician, but refuses 
to allow him to become a member of the licensing body. 
As for the question of Howard University fees, said Dr. 
Purvis, that school was not chartered for the use of colored 
pupils, and the majority of the first class were whites, the 
fees being the same as those in other schools. As the 
number of colored students increased the fees were reduced, 
and the other schools have also reduced their fees. 

" Dr. Reyburn, Dr. Lamb, and Dr. Joseph Tabor Johnson 
were members of the Society before they became Howard 
professors. After they went into the faculty they had to 
withdraw from it. Subsequently Drs. Reyburn and John- 
son left Howard and identified themselves with the medical 
department of Georgetown University, and again became 
members of the Society. Within a year Drs. Graham and 
Hood, however, have been admitted to the Society not- 
withstanding their connection with Howard University, but 
Dr. Perry, a member of the Howard faculty, has been 
rejected. 

" Dr. Purvis claimed that the leading physicians in Wash- 
ington favor Howard, but that the younger men are averse 
to the institution. He himself consults with Drs. Lincoln, 
Ford Thompson, and others of equal standing; and the 
leading medical society of Baltimore admits colored grad- 
uates of Howard University." 

The committee on June 22 found these facts, and in 
submitting their report made this comment only: " Your 
committee are fully satisfied, from the testimony of both 
sides to the controversy, that the Medical Society of the 
I >istrict of Columbia does not admit to membership colored 
physicians, however reputable or well qualified they may 
be, and that as regards teachers in the medical school of 



139] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 4t7 

Howard University it appears that in some cases they are 
admitted and in others rejected." 

This episode is recalled to illustrate the point to which a 
broad interpretation of equal civil rights may be carried, and 
to direct attention to the tendency to confuse equality of 
civil rights with that of social rights. It may be said, 
broadly speaking, that the letter of the law passed before 
1870 is observed. At different times during the past twenty 
years or more well-known negroes have been accommodated 
in the hotels of Washington without causing a stampede of 
white guests; the street car lines and steam railroads in the 
District offer equal accommodations to all, and if there is 
disorder on the late cars, particularly on Saturday nights, 
it is not so much due to the color of the occupants as to 
bad whiskey, which makes no discrimination in its effects 
on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. 

In July, 1833, Joseph Jefferson, father of the present Rip 
Van Winkle, was joint lessee with a Mr. Mackenzie of the 
Washington Theater, and together they addressed an appeal 
to the city fathers asking relief from a great burden that 
oppressed them most heavily. The appeal stated: "There is 
at present a law in force which authorizes the constables of 
the city to arrest the colored people if on the street after 
nine o'clock without a pass. A great proportion of our 
audience consists of persons of this caste, and they are con- 
sequently deterred from giving us that support that they 
would otherwise do." 1 The lessees estimated that the law 
meant a loss of $10 nightly, and as they paid a tax of $6 a 
night they asked for some modification of it While it is 
hardly likely that any of the managers of Washington 
theaters would send a similar petition to the District officials 
should another early retiring law for the negroes be 
enforced at this day, the proportion of the negroes in the 
city able to pay for theater privileges is not such as to lead 
to any desire on the part of managers to evade the law 



'Special Report, Department of Education, 1871, p. 316. 



48 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [140 

flagrantly. Indeed, in one theater, where the performances 
are such as to appeal most strongly to that element known 
as the gallery gods, it is not unusual for the black gods to 
be in the great majority. 

In the courts there is no distinction; negroes serve on 
juries in civil as well as in criminal cases, the counsel for 
the defense in a murder trial pays the same tribute to the 
intelligence and integrity of the negro juror as he pays to 
the inherent qualities of the white ones, and the acquitted 
man shakes the hands of all twelve of them with equal 
gratitude and cordiality. If a negro attorney is at times 
rebuked by the judge it is not on account of his color but 
because of his choler. 

Office-holding by negroes cannot be considered wholly as 
a local question, but what has been conceded to them at 
Washington is of interest in connection with the question 
of equality. This must also be viewed in a comparative 
light. The population of the United States by the census 
of 1890 was 62,622,250, of whom 30,554,370 were females, 
and 7,470,040 are of African descent. The total number of 
employes of the government at Washington is 23,144, of 
whom 6105 are females, and between 2500 and 3000 negroes, 
and these figures show that the percentage of negroes of 
the country holding office in Washington does not differ 
materially from the percentage of whites on the same basis. 
Taking the Interior Department, the branch of the govern- 
ment employing the greatest number of persons in Washing- 
ton, as a fair example of the whole system as far as the general 
government is concerned, it is found that of a total of 6120 
employes in 1891 the negroes numbered 337, while in the 
departments of the District government of a total of not 
more than 3000 employes in the summer of 1892 1431 were 
negroes. In the general government the negro employes 
ranged from Recorder of the District, which has been given 
to one of their race under Democratic and Republican 
administrations since the appointment of Douglass, through 
clerks, school-teachers and other vocations to charwomen 



141] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 49 

and janitors; and in the Interior Department, where the 
estimate was made, the list included 74 clerks, 38 copyists, 1 
typewriter, 2 transcribers, 12 computers, 1 assistant examiner, 
53 messengers, 1 1 skilled laborers, 74 laborers, 5 firemen, 1 
janitor, 15 watchmen, 5 packers, 1 painter, 3 receivers, 2 
attendants, and 34 charwomen, and of the total number of 
negroes thus employed 103 were citizens of the District 
when appointed. Though the greater portion of these 
employes come under the head of unskilled labor, these 
figures indicate that the negro has been equitably treated 
in the distribution of offices, unless the contention be raised 
that they should have been appointed solely because they 
were negroes. 1 

Because of the confusion of civil or public rights with 
those of a personal or private nature, certain elements of the 



'In August, 1892, the disposition of the negroes employed under 
the District Government was as follows : 1 assistant assessor, 5 
clerks, 1 food inspector, 1 superintendent of public schools, 283 
teachers, 1 custodian of books, 9 police privates, 5 members of the 
fire department, 15 messengers, 981 laborers, 18 drivers, 72 janitors, 
2 assistant superintendents and 7 foremen of street and alley clean- 
ing, 2 cooks, 3 nurses, 18 owners of horses and carts, 5 miscellan- 
eous. The most lucrative position in the District held by a negro 
has probably been that of "Recorder of Deeds. This has recently 
been changed from a fee office to a salaried one. Statistics pub- 
lished recently by a negro who had collected them, show, in addi- 
tion to those already given, 5 negroes employed at the Executive 
Mansion, 53 by the Superintendent of Public Grounds and Buildings, 
4 United States consuls, 5 messengers and 7 laborers in the State 
Department, 3 collectors of customs, 331 other employe's of the 
Treasury Department, including 1 auditor and 1 chief of division : 
354 in the Interior Department, 173 in the "War Department, 41 in 
the Navy Department, 8 in the Department of Justice, 70 in the 
Postoffice Department, 37 in the Agricultural Department, 29 by the 
Smithsonian Institution, 204 by the Public Printer, 67 at the Capitol, 
including 1 librarian ; 19 in the office of Recorder of Deeds and 68 in 
the Washington City postoffice. The employment of negroes in the 
higher positions, such as ministers to Liberia and Haiti, just as in 
the lower ones, is rather a gauge of the political influence of the 
race than anything else, except where appointments have been 
made to the classified service. 



50 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [142 

negro population place themselves in a position which is 
not commended by those of either race, who are really well- 
wishers for the progress of the negroes and who recognize 
that there are certain relations of life which cannot be regu- 
lated by law, even should a law to regulate them be passed 
in that lack of wisdom which has sometimes entered into a 
consideration of the relative status of the two races. At 
times the feeling that the law does not meet the demands of 
their race has led some of the negroes of the capital to set 
forth their grievances in public meetings or in interviews, 
which are reported in the daily papers with or without com- 
ment. This feeling cannot be thoroughly appreciated by 
any one save the individual possessed by it, for, as one of 
the negro thinkers has pointed out, neither critics nor 
champions of the negro have been entirely " acquainted with 
the life they wished to delineate, and through sheer 
ignorance ofttimes, as well as from design, have not been 
able to ' put themselves in his place.' "* The nearest 
approach the student may have to this place is to listen to 
those who speak from that standpoint. 

Upon several occasions opportunity to do this has been 
given, and the grievances of the negroes have been filed by 
them as well as answered by them. In December, 1891, a 
special meeting was held to effect some organization to 
obliterate color prejudices. One speaker said that if a colored 
person was arrested by a policeman he was treated entirely 
differently from a white person; he was clubbed by a police- 
man without any justification; that the great difference in 
the vital statistics among the colored and the whites was due 
to the fact that the colored people were forced to live in 
unhealthy houses in alleys, for which a higher percentage of 
rent was charged than for the palaces of the rich, and it was 
known that no respectable colored person could rent a 
house on certain streets on account of the combinations 
against them of real estate agents and owners. Another 

1 Mrs. Annie J. Cooper in a speech delivered April 5, 1892. 



143] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 51 

declared that the purpose of the organization was to carry 
on an agitation and cooperation in patronizing those pro- 
fessional and business men and diose stores where their 
race was recognized in the employment of clerks and sales- 
men. A third speaker pointed out that it mattered not how 
skilled the colored doctor might be, on account of prejudice 
he could not enter the bedchambers of the white people as 
the white doctor could enter those of the colored people. 
He had, however, discovered an establishment in the city 
where a colored salesman was employed by the white pro- 
prietor, and he would not advise his hearers to give their 
trade exclusively to places run by colored people, though 
he thought one of the best things they could do was to 
encourage colored people who undertook business enter- 
prises of their own when they found such men responsible 
and reliable. This speech led to that of another man, who 
reasoned that if the colored people had a few more stores 
of their own they would be in a better position. White 
people, he thought, were ahead of them in the matter of 
employing colored people in order to get colored trade, and 
he concluded with the statement that the people of the 
colored race who have money never had anything to do 
with these meetings; he wanted the colored men who had 
money to try the colored people, and thought it was time 
not only to ask the white man to take in the negro, but 
also to ask the negro to take himself in, and they should 
show to the world that they believed what they preached by 
practising it. Just before adjournment the last speaker, 
who thought the whole plan out of joint, argued that if 
they were to interfere with the white man who discriminated 
against them they should do the same thing by the black 
man who acted in the same manner. 

The proceedings of this meeting did not, of course, meet 
with the approval even of all present, much less of the com- 
munity of negroes at large, and at a subsequent meeting, 
from the incoherency of purpose displayed, were derived 
certain statements as illustrative of the sentiments of those 



52 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [144 

assembled. One individual contended that the affair had 
been started to give some one a chance to gouge money 
out of the trusting; another said that he saw more preju- 
dices among colored people of the District than between 
whites and blacks; another, that a business man must invest 
his money where it would bring the best returns, and 
colored capitalists did not propose to have the rabble who 
could not earn money dictate how they should spend it; 
while another knew black business men who had made their 
money off their own race and then invested the proceeds in 
a gilded palace for white people. 

Shortly after these meetings, which failed of accomplish- 
ing anything, as might have been expected from the pro- 
ceedings themselves, another mass meeting was called to 
protest against the killing of a young negro by a police- 
man, and to emphasize the feeling among a certain class of 
negroes that the police were extra harsh in their treatment 
of offenders of their race. The excitement ran high for 
several days, but the policeman was ultimately acquitted in 
the Criminal Court of the murder of the negro. The feeling 
was not eradicated, though, and found expression again a 
few months later in an attack upon the superintendent of 
police upon the ground that he was biased and prejudiced 
against the negroes. He had, however, suspended the 
policeman until his acquittal, and then restored him to the 
force, and these facts were brought out again in the con- 
troversy at the time, which was punctured quite cleverly by 
a negro lawyer, who wrote: 

" But the question recurs that this is a Republican admin- 
istration and that a good Republican ought to have the office 
of chief of police. To this I would say in behalf of the 
colored people that this is true as a general statement, but 
that in this particular case Maj. Moore represents that large 
and controlling element of white citizens to whom the 
colored people look for employment and whose sympathy 
and help the colored people need and want. They want it 
in the way of a public sentiment that will encourage higher 
grades of employment, the establishment of training schools 



145] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 53 

for old and young, friendly advice as to conduct at home 
and abroad, the repression of the liquor traffic, the encour- 
agement of those who are doing the best they can, the visit- 
ing of the sick, the furnishing of work for the idle. In view 
of these considerations and of his established fitness for the 
place, leave Maj. Moore where he is and encourage him 
to go forward and fill to the utmost the opportunities for 
good of his position and of his class." 

When it is borne in mind that the indignation meeting 
was held but a short time before the meeting of the Repub- 
lican Convention in the District, and that the revival of the 
agitation occurred in the waning days of a national cam- 
paign, the wisdom of the lawyer's observation is apparent. 
There is reason to believe, though, that a negro prisoner 
is treated at times with undue harshness, but this is not 
because of a desire to discriminate against the race by those 
at the head of the police department, but rather to the 
stupidity or lack of self-control en the part of an officer, 
not sufficient, though, to counteract his general value as a 
preserver of the peace. For instance, not long ago a 
respectable-looking colored boy was arrested on Sunday for 
carrying a shotgun along the street. The Assistant District 
Attorney refused to make out a charge against him of 
carrying concealed weapons, but the policeman who had 
arrested him secured a fine against him in another division 
of the police court under an old law for carrying a gun 
" with the apparent intention of hunting on the Sabbath." 
Tt should be remembered, though, before passing from this 
topic, that there are sections in Washington where a police- 
man carries his life in his hands, and the utmost severity 
is necessary to enforce respect for his office and his uniform 
on the part of the criminal classes, of which the negroes are 
an unequal proportion, constituting one-third of the popu- 
lation and contributing more than one-half to the number 
of arrests. 1 



l The Washington Post, Dec. 1, 9, 22, 25, 1891. The Evening Star, 
Nov. 29, 30, Dec. 1, 9, 22, 1891, Aug., 1892. Washington Post, Mar. 
12, 15, 16, 17, 20, 1891. 



54 The Xegro in the District of Columbia. [141 

In the spring of 1891, Congress having failed to appro- 
priate sufficient money to meet the expenses of the National 
Guard of the District, Gen. Albert Ordway, commanding, 
issued, on March 9, an order that the four companies of 
negro militia, forming two battalions, be mustered out. 
Not many years before that a similar failure on the part of 
Congress had resulted in companies being cut off, and the 
second episode brought out not onlv the protests of the 
militia affected by the order and their friends, but also the 
politicians, who saw at once another instance of the color 
line, and for several days the controversy raged. A protest 
of negro citizens was presented to the President, to whom 
Gen. Ordway had explained that the matter was a financial 
one, and that so far from having any feeling in the matter 
he would himself make as large a contribution toward main- 
taining a colored battalion which would include the four 
companies, as any other individual, and he would, if neces- 
sary, pledge the rental of the armory for a year. The con- 
ference with the President resulted in a change from the 
plan of disbanding the companies to one of consolidating 
them, which had, indeed, been contemplated previously, and 
another example was given of the equitable treatment of the 
negroes, supported by public sentiment. The two opinions 
on the subject may be had in the words of the commanding 
general, and of one of the committee which conferred with 
him. The former said : " I am glad the difficulty has been 
arranged and that the colored companies can still be kept in 
the National Guard. I hope the consolidation will be 
effected harmoniously, if it is decided on, and that all the 
necessary public help will be forthcoming. I have not 
drawn the color line at all in this matter, and the reasons for 
my action were purely military ones, as will appear to any 
one who looks into the matter." The latter said: "When 
the order disbanding the colored militia was issued, the 
impression made upon the public mind, and in which we 
shared, was that race and color, and not politics, was the 
cause of it. In reply to this. Gen. Ordway frankly ad- 



147] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 55 

mittcd that whatever his motives may have been, his order, 
under the circumstances, was susceptible of that construc- 
tion." The consolidation took place, and nothing more of 
friction came to the surface until some indefinite fears were 
expressed that the participation of the militia of both colors 
in a Thanksgiving sham battle might result in some 
unpleasantness, and the injury of one colored soldier was 
attributed privately to race feeling. 

Occasionally the controversy over discrimination takes a 
grotesque form, as in the case of the embryo bathing beach 
on the Potomac; and to a complaint that negroes were 
given a separate place from the whites, the superintendent 
replied: "I have allotted to the colored folks more area per 
capita than to the whites, but the whites have not complained 
... it is my aim to make the beach a popular bathing place, 
and everybody knows that can never be if the two races are 
forced to mingle. The Creator marked the races with 
different colors, and I do not ask why; I take them as they 
are, and with a desire to benefit both I shall not try to 
obliterate the mark. White folks will not be permitted to 
occupy the colored premises, nor colored folks the white 
premises. This seems to me the only practicable solution 
of the question, and I think the commissioners are sus- 
tained both by law and public opinion in maintaining the 
distinction the same as in the schools." While another 
correspondent wrote: "The black boy has the same privi- 
lege as the white. The beach is the same, as are the dress- 
ing-rooms, and I am quite sure both have the same privi- 
lege of bathing if they choose, and the white boy is not 
indignant that he has to bathe alone, for which reason I can- 
not see why his colored friend should be, they being on 
exactly the same footing with regard to privileges and restric- 
tions and being held to be upon an equality." 
- In brief this is a review of the contention of the negroes 
for equal rights in the District. It is presented in as 
impartial spirit as possible, and no better commentary on 
the status of the negro as to civil rights is had than in the 



56 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [148 

experiences during the recent encampment of the Grand 
Army of the Republic in Washington. When the enterpris- 
ing citizens were striving to bring the encampment to that 
city, certain negroes bestirred themselves against the plan. 
One of the spokesmen said, in referring to the Grand Army : 

" It dare not bring its next encampment to this city, when 
it is a fact that quite a number of those who signed the 
call to bring it here make bold to say that in their places 
of business no negro could or would be accommodated, and 
two of the signers have made the public statement that 
they wished no negroes would ever again enter their stores. 
We shall appeal to the moral sense, the loyal sense of the 
eminent men of the country, as well as the rank and file, 
not to encamp here on these grounds, and for other solid 
reasons, which we will make good by correspondence 
between now and then and in a public meeting in Detroit 
the first night of the encampment." 

" We have no idea," said another, " of allowing the 
encampment to be held here, and already a hall has been 
secured in Detroit in which we shall hold meetings and 
fight every claim set forth by Washington. There are more 
than the colored Grand Army men opposed to this thing, 
and they intend to fight it to the bitter end. If it is not 
already a political matter, it will be made one before it is 
over." 

The Grand Army came, however, and in its great parade 
two negroes were on the staff of the chief marshal of the 
citizens' escort, a collection of negro school children on 
one stand sang the same songs as the collection of white 
children on another, the same public provision was made 
for the comfort of the negro veterans as for the white ones, 
and in spite of the fact that the occasion presented unpre- 
cedented opportunities for the politician, but one case of 
alleged violation of civil rights was made. A negro of New 
York charged against the proprietor of a first-class restau- 
rant that his color had prevented his being served in the 
establishment. The proprietor testified that his orders had 



149] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 57 

been to serve all Grand Army men, white or black, the 
floor-walker gave his version of the incident, and in three 
minutes the jury gave a verdict of not guilty. 1 

It must not be inferred from this summary of the question \ 
that in such places as first-class saloons, restaurants, hotels 
or other public resorts the negro customer would be as 
welcome a visitor as the white one, however equal the money 
of the two races might be in other places of bargain and 
sale; but this latent spirit of discrimination would be found 
to exist in a proprietor no matter what his color, provided 
the great mass of his customers were white. This is but 
an outcropping of that feeling, recognized by the sober- 
minded of both races, that however equitably the civil rights 
of the negroes may be observed, the line is drawn when the 
question of equal social privileges is raised; but even in 
that case where personal preferences govern, as in the case 
of public resorts, where the law offers protection, the sensible 
negro perceives the wisdom of remaining where his com- 
pany is desired instead of attempting to force himself upon 
those who prefer the association of the whites alone. 

The public schools are an illustration of the feeling that 
on social lines the line must be defined between the two 
races, and the willingness that in public education the 
negroes shall enjoy privileges similar to those of the whites, 
while what might be a great lever toward the attainment of 
social equality is to be avoided, but emphasizes the feeling 
which finds expression in church relations and the inter- 
course of the private home. Whether the negroes were 
originally forced from the white churches, whether they 
willingly retired, or whether there was a medium between 
these extremes, it is doubtful whether the great majority of 
the negroes would avail themselves of the full privileges of 
the white churches should such be offered them, for it is 
noteworthy that the negro followers of two faiths, the 
Catholic and the Congregationalist, which seem to draw no 



1 Washington Pout, July 5, "91, Sept. 29, '92. 



58 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [150 

color line in their sanctuaries, have since the war and their 
enjoyment of equality under the law, organized separate con- 
gregations of their own; and it is also interesting to note 
that in the only Catholic church erected for the negroes 
particularly, whites and negroes are found worshiping 
together under the ministrations of white priests who are 
served by negro acolytes. In some of the white churches of 
other faiths a few negroes are numbered among the congre- 
gation, but they occupy the back seats or the gallery, as 
they have been accustomed to do since long before the war 
and emancipation; and the advent of a negro in responsible 
official station in the body of a church near the pew of the 
President of the United States creates as much unfavorable 
comment from some of the whites as that aroused among 
some of the negroes when one of their number preferred to 
attend a white Congregationalist church instead of lending 
his influence to a congregation of his own color. The only 
Presbyterian church in the District for negroes had its 
origin before the war, while the only Lutheran congregation 
of negroes and the Episcopal congregation of negroes, with 
a negro rector, and the Episcopal missions for them in 
charge of white clergymen, are growths of the post-bellum 
period; but the reason for the comparative scarcity of negro 
congregations of these faiths is not due to a slackening of 
the line of demarcation, but rather to a failure of their 
methods of worship to attract the negro. 

It was the opposition to social equality, too, which 
resulted in the organization of the Colored Young Men's 
Christian Association. In the preliminary meetings, while 
one element attacked the white organization on the ground 
that as it claimed to be a Christian association it should 
admit to its membership any Christian, no matter what his 
color, another explained that while those upon whom the 
existing association depended for its support objected to the 
admission of negroes, it would second any efforts of the 
new body for the welfare of the negroes. In another non- 
sectarian organization, the Woman's Christian Temperance 



151] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 59 

Union, a different spirit prevails. Some of its members are 
negroes, and they have rendered efficient service among the 
members of their race. They participate in the meetings of 
the Union, and at its receptions are on an equality with 
everybody else present. Another organization of a some- 
what philanthropic character, Wimodaughsis, the name being 
formed of the first two or three letters of the words wives, 
mothers, daughters, sisters, had not been in operation a year 
before the color question was raised, with the result of the 
resignation of the secretary, who considered herself the 
founder. The trouble was precipitated by the entrance into 
the classes of the institution of a negro woman, a teacher 
in the public schools. The resigning secretary gave her 
views as follows: 

"The idea of the Wimodaughsis is not only that of a 
business corporation, but it is a social organization. We 
have pleasant rooms here where members can come in even- 
ings and read and amuse themselves. Every Thursday 
evening we have social entertainments and once or twice 
refreshments. It was by presenting this social feature that 
I was able to bring so many of my friends, a large number 
of them being Southern ladies, to subscribe for stock in the 
organization. You can see that if negroes were admitted 
the social features would be destroyed. At the Thursday 
evening entertainments gentlemen are admitted. If colored 
women were allowed to be members, why there is nothing 
to prevent them bringing colored men to the entertainments. 
I feel that I have been treated outrageously, and in this 
belief I am sustained by not only the Southern lady stock- 
holders, but by the ladies further North who are not woman- 
sufrrasrists. The trouble all lies with the woman-suffragists, 
who, to be true to their doctrine of equality, must advocate 
the admission of negroes." 

The position of the majority of the board of directors, 
who favored the admission of negro women to the privi- 
leges of the Wimodaughsis, was that it was a business cor- 
poration, and as there was nothing in the charter limiting 



60 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [152 

the membership to any class or race, any woman who sub- 
scribed for stock was entitled to the privileges of the club, 
and any one who paid her tuition must be given that for 
which she had paid; that it was an incorporated body to 
which the provisions of the civil rights amendment applied 
just as strictly as to any other public institution. They 
denied that it was a social organization, but claimed that it 
was a club for the education of women. The result of the 
controversy was in favor of the element which the ex-sec- 
retary considered as representative of woman-suffragists; 
and the organization continued its work, and at subsequent 
events of distinctively social character, negroes were present 
and moved about as freely as anybody else. 

Aside from such organizations and those of a political 
complexion, the color line in society is drawn almost as dis- 
tinctly in Washington as in Richmond or Baltimore. Even 
in the posts of the Union veteran associations it has been 
found expedient to separate the races, though in the general 
organizations of men and the auxiliary of the women no 
such distinction is raised, and at their public meetings have 
been a liberal proportion of negro men and women. Per- 
haps a negro official or ex-official may be present at a 
White House function, and thus supply material for inflaming 
at a later date personal animosity against a presidential 
candidate; perhaps in an organization of citizens intended 
for the general welfare the negroes may have representa- 
tion; of twelve hundred and eighty-nine marriages in a 
year, of which 341 are among colored people, there may 
be cases of miscegenation, as was the case in 1S91, with 
similar acts in previous years; 1 perhaps a former mayor of 
Washington may entertain at his home negroes at a recep- 
tion in honor of the Methodist Ecumenical Conference, to 
which negroes were delegates; perhaps two or three negroes 
may be present at a reception by the citizens of Washington 



'Of three such oases in 1889 there were two white grooms and 
negro brides and one negro groom and white bride. 



153] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 61 

to the Grand Army of the Republic, or by some public 
character at other times; — but such incidents among the 
thousands of events in the composite and conglomerate 
society found at the nation's capital do not demonstrate that 
there is any real lessening of social restrictions. The com- 
plaint about these distinctions is not always directed against 
the whites, for the negroes feel that they have social limita- 
tions among their own race. Speaking generally, the white 
woman who marries a negro must find her chief social 
pleasures among his associates, if he does not lose by such 
a marriage some of their respect and sympathy; and the 
organization of a Colored Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion, instead of being a protest against caste, as one negro 
styled it, may be a half-conscious testimony to race pride. 
One of the leaders of the negroes, who has frequently made 
the capital the pulpit for his utterances to the country, had 
this to say about the Ecumenical Conference: 

" Nothing has done more to drive away the prejudice 
that exists against the colored race than this conference of 
educated Christian gentlemen. This was evidenced by what 
I saw a few days ago in the elegant residence of ex-Mayor 
Emery, of this city. Among the elegantly dressed people 
in that house I saw the colored people moving freely about, 
not crouching as if they had no right to be mere. The 
blackest of them moved about as though they had always 
been used to it. It was an illustration of the universal 
brotherhood of man and that human equality which could 
not be brought about anywhere as it has been at this con- 
ference. 

" Our American brethren fought a little shy of us, but 
our English, Scotch, and Canadian brothers took us by the 
hand as if they could never let go. We have often heard 
the doctrine of human equality preached, but in this case we 
had it exemplified. I felt proud of the dignity, the decorum, 
the gentlemanly bearing displayed by our brethren in con- 
nection with this new revelation of American society. The 
great demon that must be cast out of the American mind is 



62 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [154 

prejudice, the assumption of inferiority on account of the 
black man's color. This demon of prejudice has never been 
more authoritatively ordered to come out of Washington 
than by tiiis conference. The example will not be lost. If 
after diese English brethren have gone the Americans 
attempt any proscription, we will inform on them at the 
next conference." 

Though what he termed "the demon of prejudice" has 
failed to obey such orders, his remarks are an example of 
one view held by some negroes at the capital, which has 
been expressed in another way in the statement that "the 
colored race in fifty years will have sufficiently advanced in 
intelligence to break down a majority of the barriers now 
existing between them and the white people." The other 
view, which it is believed is held by the majority of die 
negroes who have given serious thought to the subject, is 
that of a member of a political organization in which a dis- 
cussion of the color line was had. As for social equality, 
he said he did not want it. All he wanted — all any sensible 
colored man wanted — was equal rights under the law. He 
did not believe in social equality. There might be members 
of the association whom he would object to have visiting his 
wife and family. Each man must be a judge of such things. 
No colored man of sense would ask for social equality. 
This was but a blunt way of giving vent to the sentiment 
which was expressed in a meeting of a literary society. 

"The matter of social equality," said the speaker, "will 
be, and ought to be, left to individual preferences. Although 
we have been accused of it, we are not contending for this 
sort of recognition from our white friends, because we 
recognize the right of the party doing the entertaining and 
paying the bills to select the guests, and because we find 
among ourselves all of the purely social that we have any 
need for. We do not practise unrestricted equality among 
ourselves and ought not to. We invite whom we desire; 
they accept or refuse, as they desire. There never will be 
any friction between the races on this score. We under- 



155] The Negro in tlic District of Columbia. 63 

stand and practise the same customs, distinctions and pref- 
erences which white people follow. This is not what we are 
contending for. We are not objecting because we are 
excluded from the social whirl. It is by a dexterous jug- 
gling with this idea of association with colored people in 
a purely social sense, an idea so repugnant to white people 
generally as just explained, that some persons unfriendly to 
us endeavor to raise the dust of color prejudice so thick that 
our white friends who are disposed to accord us justice can- 
not see their way clear to do it. We can take care of our- 
selves in a purely social way. But when their prejudices 
make them set up invidious distinctions and discriminations 
in public licensed dining halls, hotels and places of amuse- 
ment, make them want to exclude us from the avenues of 
remunerative employments, the commercial world, and make 
them deny to the most cultured and aspiring among us 
admission to their best professional schools, schools of art, 
their professional, scientific and literary associations, we 
think it a hardship which we, as loyal American citizens, 
ought not to be compelled to endure." 

The exceptions to the general rule regarding personal 
equality only define the rule more sharply, and no more 
prove or indicate a change of sentiment than did the ride 
of Charles Sumner and Henry W. Longfellow in a car set 
apart for negroes back in the sixties show that the great 
mass of the white population of the District favored a 
removal of those cars. 



V. 
AN EXPERIMENT IN SUFFRAGE. 

Had the legislation in behalf of the negroes in the District 
stopped short at provision for their education and civil 
rights under the law, and had those provisions been fulfilled 
in a conservative seconding of the radical spirit which 
dictated them, one chapter of life at the national capital 
would have remained unwritten, and the District of Columbia 
would probably not present now, in a government ostensibly 
of the people, by the people and for the people, the appear- 
ance of a political eunuch. Though later events may have 
demonstrated that the extension of the suffrage to the 
negroes was unwise at the time, and disastrous in its effects 
in after-years, a careful study of the events following the 
passage of what is known as the bill of rights for the District, 
with the manoeuvres preceding it, is not only instructive 
when compared with movements in other sections of the 
country, but furnishes food for careful consideration by 
those who, from a sentimental or practical standpoint, would 
devise some form of local self-government for the seat of the 
national government. 

The dream of the participation of negroes in the politics 
of the District, which was enunciated as early as 1849, 
seemed at that time the veriest figment. Eighteen years 
later the dream became a reality, with effects which were 
immediate, pronounced and, in a measure, permanent. 

Following the various acts in the negroes' behalf in the 
early years of the war, the agitation for granting them the full 
privileges of citizenship had reached such a stage in 1865 
that a special election was held, in December of that year, 
in Washington and Georgetown to determine the will of 
the white voters on the subject. The poll was a large one, 
and showed that the voters were almost unanimously opposed 



157] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 65 

to the scheme, the results being, for negro suffrage, Wash- 
ington, 35 voters, Georgetown, i; against negro suffrage, 
Washington, 6556 voters, Georgetown, 813. This sentiment 
as voiced at the polls was emphasized a few days later in 
a letter by Mayor Richard Wallach, of Washington, who 
had been mayor of that city since August, 1861, during all 
the exciting days of the war, and whose position in public 
and private life justified his judgment of the prevailing 
wishes of the voters of his community. He wrote, under 
date of January 6, 1866: "No others in addition to this 
minority of thirty-five are to be found in the community who 
favor the extension of the right of suffrage to the class and 
in the manner proposed, excepting those who have already 
memorialized the Senate in its favor and who, with but little 
association, less sympathy and no community of interests or 
affinity with the citizens of Washington, receive here from 
the general government temporary employment and having 
at the national capital residence limited only to the presiden- 
tial term and invariably exercising the elective franchise 
elsewhere." Mayor Wallach's position was one of argu- 
ment, but to argument was added threats, one newspaper 
of that time boldly insinuating about the negroes that, 
"should they go to the polls to deposit their ballots, the 
probabilities are that they would not all return to their 
homes." 

But Congress, and especially those members of the Senate 
who had become the special advocates of the negroes, had 
before them the petition of "twenty-five hundred colored 
citizens of the District " ; they had, in a sense, come to regard 
that special legislation for the District as inaugurating the 
policy which was to be pursued toward the rest of the 
country, and, in the face of the opposition of the representa- 
tives at the polls of the white population, in spite of the fact 
that in nine States distinctively loyal and represented in the 
Congress, namely, California, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, 
Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, the right of 
suffrage was limited to white males, and in others there 



t)t> The Negro in the District of Columbia. [158 

being a property or educational qualification, the Senate 
set about conferring the franchise upon all men in the Dis- 
trict who had resided in it a year, " without distinction of 
race or color." 

The debate, however, was on, and it was continued for 
several months, marked by all the bitterness of opposition 
on the one hand, and the pugnacity of views on the other, 
which had characterized similar discussions since the negro 
question had become congressional property. Quotations 
from Scripture, appeals to physiology were of no avail. 
The wise amendment offered by Senator Dixon, of Con- 
necticut, providing for a qualification of intelligence, was 
lost, as was also that of Senator Cowan, of Pennsylvania, to 
strike out the word " male " from the act, though this propo- 
sition, which was at first considered a joke, precipitated a pro- 
longed debate, which will all be repeated in all likelihood 
before the enfranchisement of women. On December 13, 1866, 
the bill was passed by the Senate, and on the next day die 
House acted favorably upon it. It had, however, not yet 
become effective and received a temporary check when it 
was returned, on January 5, 1867, with the veto of President 
Johnson. His message on the subject was a length}' one, 
but after he had reviewed the special election of 1865, he 
went to the heart of the matter in these words, in referring 
to the new voters who would be created should the bill 
become a statute: 

*' Possessing these advantages but a limited time, the 
greater number, perhaps, having entered the District of 
Columbia during the later years of the war, or since its 
termination, one may well pause to enquire whether after so 
brief a probation they are, as a class, capable of an intelligent 
exercise of the right of suffrage and qualified to discharge 
the duties of official position. * * * Clothed with the elec- 
tive franchise, their numbers, already largely in excess of 
the demand for labor, would soon be increased by an influx 
from the adjoining States. Drawn from fields where employ- 
ment is abundant, (hey would in vain seek it here, and so add 



159J The Negro in the District of Columbia- G7 

to the embarrassment already experienced from the large 
class of idle persons congregated in the District. Hardly yet 
capable of forming correct judgments upon the important 
questions that often make the issues of a political contest, 
they could readily be made subservient to the purposes of 
designing persons * * * It is within their power to come into 
the District in such numbers as to have the supreme control 
of the white race and to govern them by their own officers, 
and by the exercise of all the municipal authority, among 
the rest, of the power of taxation over property in which 
they have no interest.'' 1 

Congress was not to be restrained by such reasoning, but, 
on January 8, passed the bill over the veto, and the right of 
franchise was conferred upon the representatives of more 
than 30,000 persons, the majority of whom were but five or 
six years removed from the life on a plantation. This was 
less than seven months after the fourteenth amendment had 
been proposed and more than eighteen months before it 
became a part of the Constitution by ratification. It was 
nearly two years before the fifteenth amendment was pro- 
posed, but it was soon followed by the civil rights bill of 
the District. This provided that the word "white" where- 
ever it occurred in the laws relating to the District of Co- 
lumbia, or in the charter or ordinances of the cities of 
Washington or Georgetown, and operated as a limitation 
on the right of any elector of the District to hold any office, 
or to be selected and to serve as a juror, was to be repealed. 
Passed in July, 1867, and again in December of that year, 
it failed to become a law through President Johnson's not 
signing it, but on March 18, 1869, it received the signa- 
ture of President Grant, and the sweeping legislation for 
the political benefit of the negroes reached its culmination. 

Effects of this were instantaneous almost, and in April, 
1869, Congress was asked to change the form of government. 
The agitation to this end was continued during the terms of 

1 Veto Messages, 1792-1886, p. 324. 



Ob Tfu Negro in the District of Columbia. [100 

service of Mayors Sayles J. Bovven and M. G. Emery. On the 
iloor of Congress the new class of full-fledged citizens were 
reckoned among the elements contributing to make the 
government of the capital "the worst government in the 
United States," and, indeed, one speaker stated as his opinion 
that "now the truth is that there are reasons why a muni- 
cipal government for this District, elected by universal 
suffrage, should be a worse government for the District 
than the municipal government of other cities, if that be 
possible." It was a curious form of government, to say 
the least, and when, in spite of objections of municipal 
authorities, and a ''reform" movement, it was changed 
by act approved February 21, 1871, to a territorial form, 
it was thought that the people and Congress would have 
some measure of relief. Escaping from Scylla, however, 
the District seemed to have dashed against Charybdis, 
for within less than a year after the inauguration of 
the territorial government, which included a governor, 
a council and a board of public works appointed by the 
President, a House of Delegates, and a delegate to Con- 
gress elected by the people, an investigation of its affairs 
was demanded of Congress and granted. A special commit- 
tee sat for ninety days, beginning January 22, 1872, and 
devoted their time to a study of documents and the hearing 
of testimony regarding the conduct of elections and the man- 
aging of the finances of the corporation, notably the $4,000,- 
000 loan which by an election held in November, 1S71, had 
been authorized for the use of the board of public works. 
The investigation was useful not only in illustrating the 
character of elections under universal male suffrage, but 
also in indicating what would be the result of the system 
under the peculiar conditions prevailing in the District. 
Witnesses told of the absence from the polls of tickets 
against the loan, of negroes marching to the polls or camp- 
ing in their vicinity for hours, and of some reputable citizens 
remaining away from the polls entirely. One witness, for 
instance, said: 



161] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 69 

" On the Republican side we would have our meetings in 
each precinct the evening prior to election, and in some 
instances we would go to the polls in bodies and sleep there 
till morning, to await the opening of the polls, because it 
would sometimes take a man two hours before he could get 
at the window to deposit his vote." One body of men, 
who were then organized, included 7 whites out of 86 voters, 
and it is really not surprising to read the statement of the 
memorialists praying for an investigation, that "the 
minority, appalled by the perception that five voters who 
had nothing might surely be counted on to tax the property 
of the sixth," made no efforts at the polls. 

In November, 1867, the number of voters in the District 
were 13,294 white, 6648 negro; in April, 1871, of the 
28,502 votes registered, 26,306 were cast at the election of a 
delegate to Congress; in November of the same year, of 
the 28,529 voters registered, 1 7,757 were white and 10,772 
negro. The vote in that month, on the $4,000,000 loan, 
was 14,760 for and 121 3 against, while, at the same time, 
17,750 votes were cast for the District house of delegates/ 
As there is nothing in evidence to show that the negroes 
were backward in exercising their new rights, it is fair to 
presume that there was much truth in the words of the 
memorialists. The testimony of one witness is so enlight- 
ening that it should be read in this connection. Rev. J. W. 
Green, a negro divine, was before the committee, and this 
was the dialogue: 

" State your name, residence and occupation." 

" J. W. Green ; I reside in Washington ; am a minister of 

the Gospel." 

"Were you present at a meeting on the 12th of October, 
1871, in the seventeenth district, held at Island Hall?" 

" I was." 



' Investieation into the Affairs of the District, 1872, p. 274. 
•Investigation, etc., 1872, pp. 442-443, 493. Cf. Investigation, 
etc., 1874, p. viii. 



70 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [162 

" Where Colonel Perry Carson was chairman and Joseph 
Williams was elected secretary pro tern.:" 

" Yes, Sir." 

" Is that a truthful report of what occurred at that meet- 
ing'?" (Question objected to.) 

" State what occurred at that meeting." 

"I was present at that meeting called by F. A. Boswell, 
the chairman of the Republican club of that district. Mr. 
Boswell left after calling the meeting, and went to Massa- 
chusetts. The meeting went on, and Perry Carson was a 
vice-president and called the meeting to order. Mr. Williams 
was elected secretary pro tern. Carson stated the object of 
the meeting, when Williams got up and stated the call f( tr 
the meeting, and then said that he himself advocated the 
four million dollar loan, or words to that amount; and that 
he was sorry it was not ten million instead of four. The 
report in the paper (the Citizen) is substantially correct." 

Objection being made to the witness stating what he him- 
self said, as he was not connected with the government, so 
much of the proceedings of the meeting were then read as 
included what Mr. Williams said, as follows: 

"Joseph Williams arose and said that he only hoped it 
was for $10,000,000 instead of $4,000,000, for the labours 
would at least get the drippings. If the loan was defeated, 
the laborers would be thrown out of employment and their 
families would suffer. Some people alleged against him that 
he was a contractor. He thanked God that he had brains 
enough to be a contractor, and that he was not dependent 
on office for his support. All he wished was contracts, and 
he would fill them rightly. He expected to transmit his 
brains to his children and all the children around him. lie 
had brains enough for the whole seventeenth district.*** 
He always paid his laborers, and if he made money in his 
contracts, he did it on the square, and he defied any one to 
catch him tripping *** Wnoever, said he, shall vote against 
the loan must take the consequences. He was interested 
in the loan, and if any man voted against it and came to him 
for work, he would tell him go starve." 



163] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 71 

This suggestive extract having been read, the examination 
of Green was continued. He was asked: 

" Do you know whether the colored men were intimi- 
dated at the polls?" 

" I do not know," he replied, " whether they were directly 
at the polls, but they were before they went there." 

"By whom?" 

" By threats made in public speeches, in like manner to 
this one read." 

" By contractors or men in the city government?" 

" I cannot say, but I think so." 

" Do you know whether any member of the District gov- 
ernment made any such threats?" 

"I would not say but I think I could be prepared to 
answer that question." 

"Were voters brought up to the polls in bodies?" 

" No, Sir, they came up two abreast." 

" Did they go up in considerable numbers at one time, 
under leaders?" 

" There were attempts made several times, but the police 
prevented it." 

" Was mere any arrangement made beforehand that they 
should vote in a certain way?" 

" I do not know." 

" Did they have leaders to supply them with tickets?" 

" The tickets were placed in the hands of various persons, 
who dealt them out on the morning of the election. I was 
chairman, and dealt out tickets and saw that they were dis- 
tributed properly." 

"Were the tickets for and against the loan of different 

colors?" 

" I did not interfere with that election at all. I think four 
were placed in my hands. I voted for the delegate and kept 
the other three. I don't know how voters were brought up 
at the last election. I was speaking of the common custom. 
I didn't bother my head with the last election; I simply 
voted and passed along. I don't recollect about the color of 
tickets." 



72 The S egro in the District of Columbia. [1<J± 

"At the elections here, are the colored men in the habit 
of voting for men upon their own preferences and judg- 
ment?" 

".Many are not; they depend upon others more than the 
white voters generally, because they are uneducated. Men 
of my own color will deceive their color as well as 
white men. White men can deceive them better, because 
they are educated." 

" Who edited the paper when Mr. Williams' speech was 
reported?" 

" I do not recollect I heard the speech, and so far as 
read it is substantially correct." 

"Did you oppose the loan?" 

" Yes, Sir." 

" Did you make speeches against it?" 

" Yes, Sir." 

" Did you vote at all on it yourself?" 

" No, Sir." 

" Do you know any one who was influenced, either by 
money or intimidation, to vote for the loan?" 

" I do not, personally."' 

" Do you know of the use of any money?" 

"No, Sir." 

"Was money offered to you?" 

" No, Sir. 1 informed them that no man must offer me 
money." 

" You have been a leader among your people on election 
days?" 

" I have always taken an interest among our people, to 
instruct them, as they are uneducated, and tried to see that 
no advantage was taken of them." 

"When you spoke of distributing votes, you did not 
allude to the last election"" 

"No, Sir. I have opposed some of the men of my ^wn 
color, and have been abused by them because I expressed 
my sentiments against certain men. There seemed to be 
more interest in the last election, generally, than usual." 



I(i5j The Negro in the District of Columbia. 73 

" More in the loan than in electing a delegate to Con- 
gress?" 

" I suppose some did; the loan brought in a different class; 
some interested for money, and some for politics." 

" Do you know of money being used in either elections?" 
" Yes, Sir." 

" Was any treating done at the other elections ?" 
" Considerable." 

" Have you been in the employ of Mr. Albert Grant?" 
" No, Sir." 

" Did you vote on the loan on either side?" 
" No, Sir. I think there were tickets at the polls against 
the loan in the morning." 

" For whom did you vote for delegate?" 
" Mr. Boswell. I did not know whether he was in favor 
of the loan or not." 

"How long before die last election was the meeting at 
which Mr. Williams made the speech which has been 
referred to?" 

"The election was on the 21st of November; the meeting 
was on the 12th of October." 

" What proportion of the people of your district are labor- 
ing men?" 

"A large portion of them; mostly colored men. Many 
of them have been in the habit of laboring on the streets." 

" Do you know whether colored men were imported from 
Maryland or Virginia, outside?" 

"Yes, Sir; men were brought in from Maryland, who 
worked on Seventh Street, inside of the boundary; and men 
were brought from Alexandria to work on the canal." 
" Did they vote?" 

" I do not know rightly whether they did or not." 
" Were many brought in?" 

"There were on Seventh Street. I saw fifteen out of 
eighteen that were brought from Alexandria " 

" W r ere they brought here to work or vote, or both?" 
" I do not know; but I know they were residents of Alex- 
andria." 



74 The "Negro in the District of Columbia. [166 

" Did you have any conversation with any of them about 
voting?" 

" No, Sir." 

" Did you see any of them vote at the polls?" 

" No, Sir. It was before election." 

" Have you any knowledge of intoxicating liquors being 
dealt out at polling places?" 

" I did not see it; only its effects." 

" Do you know that it has been threatened that, if the 
Democrats were successful, they would restore slavery?" 

" I have heard that frequently, and have had to fight it, 
and tried to instruct them to know better than to believe 
such a thing." ' 

Comment is almost unnecessary upon this array of state- 
ments and inferences, which were a fair exemplification of 
the position occupied by the negroes in the politics of the 
time. But the exhibit is the more significant because the 
elections not only placed men of color in the Legislative 
Assembly, where they had the ultimate power of taxation, 
but also because this particular election opened, as it were, 
the bunghole of the treasury, through which the money of 
the people flowed in ever-increasing volume, instead of per- 
colating moderately and unvaryingly through the legitimate 
spigot. It was told in the investigation how some of the 
funds of the District were used, the telling of this, perhaps, 
explaining, in part, the comparative unanimity of those able 
to read among those who appeared at the polls. At that 
time, when the population of the District did not exceed 
135,000, of whom not more than 90,000 were white, fifteen 
newspapers enjoyed either a substantial or a more or less 
precarious existence. In the first ten months of its opera- 
tions, the government felt called upon to distribute among 
all these papers, for advertising and printing. $101,221.79, 
and from January 31, [872, to April 1, 1874. $88,803.53. a 
total of $190,025.32 in three years; this total not including 



'Investigation, etc., L872, pp. 372 374 



167] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 75 

the accounts of the lire department and the various school 
boards. The expenditure in the first ten months, according 
to the statements of the government, though the minority 
of the investigating committee estimated it at $143,635.62, 
was but $11,813.36 less than the total amount spent under 
the administration of the last two mayors, a period of three 
years, and that sum, $112,035.15, included the cost of bind- 
ing the official documents. Granted that the change of 
government necessitated extra advertising, even the majority 
of the committee acknowledged that some of it was unneces- 
sary, and within a few weeks after the investigation closed 
without action against the authorities, the Legislative As- 
sembly, on June 20, passed an act regulating the municipal 
advertising, by which the expense in that line was some- 
what reduced, though William E. Chandler had explained 
the situation in these words: 

" It was difficult to give the advertising to one newspaper 
without giving it to all, and with that generosity which 
public officials usually show to the newspaper press, the 
papers of the District were allowed to print all the govern- 
ment advertising, without any attempts to make sharp bar- 
gains with them. Complaints of this character, 'too great 
expenditure of money for printing and advertising.' are 
always made against every municipal, State or national 
administration, and while such expenditures cannot always 
be justified, the offenses may well be treated as venial and not 
deserving of severe reprehension. 



» 1 



Appended to Investigation, etc., 1872, p. 19. On this point the 
minority report had the following (p. xvii) : "The seventh charge 
is that ' an unparalleled profligacy in advertising has been exhibited 
in the employment of fifteen newspapers, bearing an ominous 
resemblance to subsidizing the press of the District,' This charge 
is fully proven, the amount thus expended reaching the enormous 
sum of ?143,635.62 ; and the recklessness and profligacy of tlie 
District government and board of public works in regard to this 
charge is fully admitted by the majority. It was attempted on the 
part of the District government to justify this large expenditure 
for advertising and printing on the ground that its use brought the 



JQ The Negro in the District of Columbia. [168 

The investigation ended in what was considered a vindi- 
cation of the municipal administration, though the minority 
report to Congress voiced the opinion of some, that some 
change should be made by which greater power over the 
officers should be enjoyed by the people. But the proposi- 
tion then advanced, to make all the officers elective, except 
the governor, would hardly have met the united support of 
the opposition, as with them it was not so much a question 
of the people having a voice in the conduct of their affairs, 
as of some people not having a voice, inasmuch as they were 
not qualified to exercise their new-gained privileges intel- 
ligently. 

Results of the first investigation did not cause the opposi- 
tion to relax their efforts, which culminated in another invest- 
igation in 1874. At the first session of the forty-third Con- 
gress, several petitions were presented by citizens of the 
District, asking that a joint select committee should be 
appointed to examine into the affairs of the District govern- 
ment. The committee was appointed and, after organization, 
on February 11, and the arrangement of certain preliminaries, 
commenced taking testimony, on March 5, and continued 
its sessions for that purpose daily until May 28th. 

The committee's task was to inquire whether unlawful 
contracts had been made for public improvements, the actual 
cost of the improvements, the amount agreed to be paid for 



newspapers to the support of the loan, and the unity of sentiment of 
the people as expressed through the press had a material influence 
on the value of the bonds in the market, and yet we have the 
sworn statement of every newspaper proprietor in the District that 
the amount received from advertising and printing hail no influence 
whatever upon their action, which clearly establishes the fact that 
the large expenditure above named, or the greater portion of it, 
was utterly thrown away, and was simply taking that sum from the 
pockets of the tax-payers and giving it to the press; not for the 
purpose of subsidizing it, for that is sufficiently disproved by the 
sworn statements of the proprietors themselves, but simply from a 
high regard entertained by the Distri. t government for the news- 
paper press." 



109] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 77 

them; whether unlawful assessments and taxes had been 
levied; whether correct measurements of work had been 
made; the existing debt on its account, and what, if any, 
portion of such indebtedness was created on account of 
Government property and might be paid out of the United 
States treasury; and to report such amendments to the 
organic acts as might be necessary to protect further the 
right- of citizens, or to regulate the handling of moneys. 

Governor Shepherd, who had succeeded Governor Cooke 
as the executive of the District, in answer to the petitioners 
had submitted a memorial arraigning the other memorialists, 
reviewing briefly the affairs of government under the terri- 
torial system, and, while disclaiming all purpose to evade 
any reasonable and proper investigation, asking whether, 
under all the circumstances, it would be fair and just to the 
people of the country and of the District, and to himself and 
his associates, to enter upon an inquest without some probable 
cause shown of the truth of the charges made. He stated 
that, in addition to the report of the former investigation, 
"completely vindicating the District authorities," "every 
charge of unlawful exercise of power by the District authori- 
ties now complained of has been presented to the courts of 
the District, and in every instance the District authorities 
have been sustained; that at every election, of which there 
have been several, the people of the District have sustained 
its officers by large majorities; that notwithstanding attacks 
through the public press and the utmost efforts of the fac- 
tionists of the District already alluded to, which for malevo- 
lence, unscrupulousness and want of truth have been unpar- 
alleled, still your memorialist believes that the officers thus 
assailed have not forfeited the respect of the public at large 
or the citizens of the District, but would be fully vindicated 
before your honorable body if their voices could be heard. 
Your memorialist denies that the opposition, now demanding 
a third or fourth investigation, are law-abiding citizens or 
are seeking the good of the District; but says their whole 
purpose is either to overthrow the present form of govern- 



78 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [170 

ment or to cause the removal of officers whose appointment 
they cannot themselves dictate." 1 

Mr. Shepherd was heard again and at length in the inves- 
tigation, in which the utmost latitude seems to have been 
allowed in the examination of witnesses and the admission 
of testimony, and at its conclusion the report to Congress, 
made June 16, was signed by all the committee, — Senators 
William B. Allison, Allen G. Thurman, William M. Stewart. 
Representatives Jeremiah M. Wilson, Jay A. Hubbell. 
Lyman K. Bass, Hugh A. Jewett, and Robert Hamilton, 
who were unanimous in the recommendations to Congress. 

The greater part of the examination was devoted to the 
board of public works, which was claimed by counsel for 
the defense to be not subordinate to the municipal body 
corporate, and which it was alleged had levied special assess- 
ments under express authority of the legislative assembly 
and not independently of it. Counsel also contended that 
the board had not usurped authority, that its construction 
of the organic act under which it had conducted operations 
had been sanctioned repeatedly by judgments of the courts, 
that Congress had from time to time made appropriations 
for payment of the work, and that the indebtedness of the 
board of public works was no portion of the indebtedness of 
the municipality of the District of Columbia. 

The investigating committee, after weighing all the evi- 
dence, found that while they could join in the general 
expressions of gratification at the improved condition of the 
national capital, they were compelled to condemn the 
methods by which the sudden transformation had been 
effected. They considered that the board had adopted an 
erroneous method, vicious in its results, of awarding con- 
tracts without open competition, with the attendant increased 
cost for improvements and the opening of the way to favor- 
itism in letting contracts and of brokerage in the same. 
They found that in three years the funded indebtedness of 



Investigation, etc., 1874, p. 11. 



171] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 79 

the District had increased from $4,350> l8 9-9 I to $9,902,- 
251.18, and that the total burden upon the property of the 
District was $20,716,008.07, while the assets represented by 
all forms of taxation was $6,726,360.04, and the District 
treasury was practically exhausted in all its departments. 
As illustrative of the financial methods of the administration, 
the committee's report may be quoted verbatim as follows: 
" The act creating the board limited the total debt of the 
District of Columbia to 5 per cent, upon the assessed value 
of property within the District, the intent of which was to 
limit the actual debt of the District to that sum. The 
board, however, construed the various provisions of the 
organic act as placing them and their transactions without 
the pale of this limitation, endeavoring, at the same time, to 
keep within the letter of the law, while violating its spirit; 
and to this end the legislative assembly, from time to time, 
passed acts which were simply devised for the purpose of 
raising money with which to pay previously incurred obli- 
gations, and continue the improvements by creating tem- 
porary obligations upon the property of individuals in the 
District. Thus we find that after exhausting the $4,000,000 
loan, authorized by the act of July 10, 1871, in the improve- 
ment of streets and the building of sewers, an act of the 
legislative assembly was passed authorizing the issuance of 
$2,000,000 of what were called ' certificates of indebtedness,' 
the payment of which was secured by a pledge of the assess- 
ments upon property adjacent to the improvements. Again, 
after exhausting this device for the payment of contractors, 
the legislative assembly, by an act, divided the cities of 
Washington and Georgetown into sewerage districts, and 
levied a tax upon the various sewerage districts, varying in 
rate from 5 to 20 mills upon the square foot, although at 
the time this act was passed nearly one-half of the entire 
sewerage system was completed as contemplated by what 
was known as the comprehensive plan, submitted to the 
Mature in 1871, as a basis of the $4,000,000 loan, which 
expressly included a system of sewerage. By this device 



80 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [172 

$2,120,000 were added to the assets of the board of public 
works, and were disbursed to contractors, except about 
the sum of $500,000 thereof. Various other acts were 
passed of a similar character, involving- smaller sums, and 
by this system of credit upon credit, or rather debt upon 
debt, the board continued its vast operations, the result of 
which has been to create a debt for which the board of 
public works and the District, in one form or another, are 
liable, and when added to the other floating indebtedness of 
the District, together with the funded indebtedness, aggre- 
gates not less than $18,000,000 instead of $10,000,000, as 
limited by the act of Congress of May 8, 1872." 1 

With this view of the situation, with the fact before them 
of an exhausted treasury and a largely expanded debt upon 
the people of the District, and in spite of the enhancement 
of the capital as a place of residence and the essential 
improvements which were attempted in a brief space of 
time when years should have been occupied for their com- 
pletion, the committee, without precluding the idea that there 
should be some form of representative government in the 
District, recommended the abolition of the executive, the 
secretary of the District, the legislative assembly, the board 
of public works, and the office of delegate in Congress, and 
the appointment of a commission to manage the District 
affairs until Congress should have time to frame a proper 
form of government; for the committee had arrived unani- 
mously at the conclusion " that the existing form of govern- 
ment is a failure; that it is too cumbrous and too expensive; 
that the powers and relations of its several departments are 
so ill-defined that limitations intended by Congress to apply 
to the whole government are construed to limit but one of 
its departments; that it is wanting in sufficient safeguard 
against maladministration and the creation of indebtedness; 
that the system of taxation it allows opens a door to great 
inequality and injustice, and is wholly insufficient to secure 



'Investigation, etc., 1874, pp. xii, viii, xiii, xxviii. 



173] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 8L 

the prompt collection of taxes; and that no remedy short 
of its abolition and the substitution of a simpler, more 
restricted and economical government will suffice." 1 

Four days after the presentation of the committee's report 
its recommendation was adopted in an act of Congress end- 
ing the short life of the territorial government, and appoint- 
ing a commission of three persons to administer affairs. At 
the same time provision was made under which the present 
form of government by three commissioners was established 
July I, 1878. 

An experiment had been tried in negro suffrage and it 
had failed, and failed in such a manner as to tinge with 
prophecy the words of Johnson in his veto message. Men 
fresh from the plantation, where they had had absolutely no 
schooling in the duties of citizenship, men without any 
interest of associations or property in the welfare of the 
District beyond the fact that they expected to make a living 
there, had been at one stroke clothed with powers equal not 
only to those of their race who in spite of " the black code " 
had by urban life been placed far in advance of the field 
hand, but also to those of the white race, who, having 
enjoyed for centuries all the elevating gifts which usually are 
evolved from education and wealth, Avere best qualified to 
realize what would most conduce to the welfare of the 
community. This latter class, it may be argued, had not 
always displayed the wisdom which they should have pos- 
sessed, but this may be explained to some extent. There 
are gradations among the whites just as there are among 
the negroes, and there are few municipal governments in 
which the element, which naturally should be expected to 
lead in public affairs, are moved to do little beside holding 
mass meetings before elections and indignation meetings 
afterward, in the meantime neglecting the most important 
work of elections, — organizing the voters and seeing that 
all the votes are cast. But the white people of Washington, 

1 Investigation, etc., 1874, pp. viii, xv, xxviii, xxix. 



H2 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [17-4 

even had they been united politically or had community of 
interests, had done little in seventy-odd years to raise Wash- 
ington much beyond the grade of a village, and the munici- 
pal governments were far from perfection. 

Just as in the case of the negroes, diere were three 
distinct classes of whites in the community, — die conserva- 
tive element of education, wealth or refinement, the employes 
of die government, and a mixed aggregation of the elements 
which had made the Snow riot in 1835 and other overt 
acts against the negroes a possibility, the flotsam and jetsam 
of the armies, the hangers-on to politicians, and the adven- 
turers of various sorts which had for years infested the capi- 
tal. The extremes of the white race were as far removed 
from each other in affinity as was the white race from die 
negroes in color. Even before the extension of the suffrage 
the whites were divided politically, and afterward they did 
not unite their forces on public questions or at the polls as 
did most negroes. The reputable part of the community, 
even had they been of one mind about the suffrage, wen- 
powerless in the face of the determination of ruling spirits 
in Congress to push the special legislation for the negro to 
its utmost: and while it may be an easy matter now to 
point out that this or that should have been done, it is easy 
to understand with what despair the opposition saw the 
horde of ignorance turned loose upon the polls. It was a 
shock to their inherited and developed ideas to see the 
negroes acting as policemen and firemen or occupying 
positions in the local government, the legitimate fruits of a 
suffrage at a time when the theory that to' the victors belong 
the spoils had unlimited sway. But It was not that which 
appalled them. Then- great fear was based upon the fact 
thai the negroes holding the balance of power,if not actually 
C( ntrolling affairs, were the real arbiters of the expenses of 
government and of the taxation of which they bore but a 
slight part, and they dreaded the results of such a rule, and 
this fear was not unreasonable when the situation is ex- 
plained. For instance, in 1870 Washington, in a group of 



175] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 83 

the first twenty cities of the country, occupied the twelfth 
place in population. Of this the negroes constituted 32.46 
per cent., — the largest among the twenty cities, New Orleans 
being next, with 26.35 P er cent. At the same time, of 37.71 
per cent, of persons engaged in all classes of occupation 
in Washington, 23.90 per cent., the largest percentage in the 
twenty cities, were engaged in callings which cannot be said 
to add directly to the wealth of a city; while the percentage 
of those engaged in agriculture, manufactures and trade was 
much below that of the other cities. The preponderance of 
the non-productive elements was due to the incoming of the 
negroes, largely, though the presence of officeholders had 
not a little to do with it. At the same time, out of a popu- 
lation of 38,726 negroes in Washington and Georgetown, 
it was estimated there were 23,843 above 10 years old who 
could not write and a large proportion of them unable to 
read. 

But the views of the whites regarding the suffrage were 
not harmonious by any means. While such a man as George 
W. Riggs was willing to say, " I think that the majority of 
voters here are incapable of self-government," and would 
have a government by a commission, another such as 
Walter S. Cox, favoring bodies elected by taxpayers, 
asserted that he did not intend to discriminate against colored 
voters, and added, " I should be for allowing all to vote 
who were obliged to share in the burdens of government. 
I know," continued he, " a great many colored people in 
Georgetown who are as competent to vote as the white 
people of the same class." He considered them generally 
orderly and industrious, although he had no doubt 
that a great many of those who had recently arrived in the 
District from the surrounding counties were too ignorant to 
be properly qualified to vote. u If I had my way," he said. 
" T would make both property and intelligence qualifications 
for all voters." 1 

1 Investigation, etc., 1872, pp. 692, 701. 



84 The Xegro in the District of Columbia- [176 

Though these opinions varied as to the remedy for the 
existing evils, they practically coincided as to the influences 
which demanded a change, and their echoes are heard when- 
ever the agitation for local self-government rinds utterance 
in the halls of national legislation. As recently as the 
winter of 1890 the Senate, while discussing a resolution 
referring to the Commissioners of the District, was given 
a review of the question of negro suffrage by some of those 
who had done so much to bring local government to an end 
by their recommendations, and by odiers whose memories 
reached back to that time. 1 The text of the review wa.- 
given by Mr. Ingalls, who said: "The experiment of popular 
suffrage w r as tried here for a number of years, the experi- 
ment of a representative local government was tried here, 
and after many years of experience it was deliberately 
abolished by the concurrence, and I think the unanimous 
concurrence, of both houses of Congress acting in their 
constitutional capacity as the rulers of this District, and 
with the approbation of all the people of the District except 
those men who wanted to be in local office. . . The subject 
was considered from alpha to omega, and the investigation 
resulted in the unanimous conclusion that under the con- 
ditions which existed here it was wise that Congress should 
resume the function it had abdicated." 

Mr. Stewart, of similar mind, alluding to the right of 
suffrage for which Mr. Blair had pleaded, said that he had 
seen it at the capital, " when it was in the hands of the people, 
and they were called upon to elect a vast number of officers, 
and they made worse mistakes here than elsewhere. 
Perhaps the condition was peculiar at the time. There had 
been a large addition to the voters of people unaccustomed 
to exercise the right of franchise, but they showed the same 
incapacity here that they do everywhere to select the large 
number required of them." 



'Congressional Record, Doc. 1800, pp. 171-77. 



\ 






177] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 85 

Mr. Morgan then undertook to review the matter, and 
phrased his opinion thus: "That local government became 
corrupt and abominable and disgraceful, an eyesore, a 
rebuke, a disastrous commentary upon civil government. 
It was called the ' feather-duster legislature/ and it had 
about it so many ludicrous phases, and it was so the sub- 
ject of general reprobation and ridicule, that it could not be 
tolerated any longer. It was abolished by an act of Con- 
gress, and the pendulum swung to the other extremity." 
He asked Mr. Allison what was the leading circumstance 
that caused this entire change, and the Senator from Iowa, 
who had been a member of the second investigating com- 
mittee, in reply said that there had been a great many cir- 
cumstances, though he thought the chief thing was that 
there was an enormous debt of the District and of the cities 
of Washington and Georgetown. He did not know pre- 
cisely what the Senator from Alabama had in his mind in 
asking for the chief motive on the part of the investigating 
committee for changing the government, but he added that 
" it was absolutely necessary to destroy every existing gov- 
ernment here in order to have a settlement of the situation 
at that time."' This action was characterized by Mr. Morgan 
as similar to the method of stamping out disease among 
cattle by slaughtering every animal which should be in any 
way likely to be affected. 

" To burn down the barn to get rid of the rats," inter- 
jected Mr. Ingalls. 

"Yes," retorted Mr. Morgan; "to burn down the bam 
to get rid of the rats, and that is what was done in this case, 
the rats being the negro population and the barn being the 
government of the District of Columbia, 'the feather-duster 
legislature.' " 

" That is the Senator's inference and not mine." was 
Ingalls's comment. 

" It was so palpable," said Mr. Morgan, " that the Sena- 
tor from Kansas had expressed what was in the mind of the 
Senator from Iowa that I could not refrain from applying 



86 The Negro in the District of Gohmibia. [178 

the allusion of the Senator from Kansas to the Senator from 
Iowa." 

Continuing, he contended that there had been no occasion 
for depriving ever}' white man in the District of his right to 
vote, but that all the bad material in the electoral power 
should have been extirpated, and he added some statements 
which seem largely borne out not only by the facts elicited 
in 1872 but by the traditions still current in Washington. 
" Now, the historical fact," he said, " is simply this, that 
the negroes came into this District from Virginia and Mary- 
land and from other places; I know dozens of them here 
now who flocked in from Alabama in that period of time. 
The invitation being a very urgent one to them, they came 
in here and they took possession of a certain part of the 
political power of this District; that is to say, they did not 
take possession of it, for they were incapable of doing that; 
but their masters and owners, the owners of their consciences, 
having stronger bonds upon them than their masters had 
ever had upon their persons while they were in slavery, 
took them and put them as a factor, a political power and 
agency, into the administration of the affairs of the District 
of Columbia, and there was but one way to get out, so Con- 
gress thought, so this able committee thought, and that was 
to deny the right of suffrage entirely to every human being 
in the District and have every office here controlled by 
appointment instead of by election. Thereupon in the face 
of this influx of negro population from the surrounding 
States, the Senate and the House of Representatives, in order 
to preserve property rights and the decency of administra- 
tion in the central government of the United States here 
around the very footwalls of the Capitol, found it necessary 
•■i disfranchise every man in the District of Columbia, no 
matter what his reputation or character might have been or 
his holdings in property, in order thereby to get rid of this 
load of negro suffrage that was flooded in upon thorn. 
That is the true statement. History cannot be reversed. 
■ man can misunderstand it." 



1T1*J The Negro in the District of Columbia. 87 

The blame lor the condition of affairs reflected in this 
debate cannot be placed entirely upon the negroes. It is 
not surprising- that they should have thronged to the polls 
at the first opportunity to do so. They had been a 
political question ever since the compromise of 1787, and 
during the conditions resulting logically from that compro- 
mise they had been induced to regard the government as 
their particular patron and the party in power as their 
savior. When that party, after a debate which could not 
have failed to arouse their deepest interest even as it per- 
colated to them through hearsay, placed the ballot in their 
hands, it was the most natural thing in the world for them 
to seek to exercise their newly-acquired privileges: and as 
the act of Congress tended to increase the antagonism to 
them of those who from a political standpoint would have 
been wise in obtaining control of the new voters, if that had 
been possible, it was not strange that the new citizens, par- 
ticularly those who were latest from the plantation and most 
deeply submerged in the consequent ignorance, should have 
become the dupes and tools of those among the whites or 
of their own race who in all modern politics thrive upon 
the lack of intelligence of their followers, or should have 
come under the malign influence of the adventurers who 
thronged to the capital towards the close of the war and in 
the following years. 

There were, indeed, in political affiliation with this com- 
bination of greed and ignorance, men who, because of the 
historic position which their party had assumed, felt oblige! 
from policy or principle to place themselves in line with the 
newly enfranchised: but however reputable they may have 
been they could do little had they desired to stem the cur- 
rent which was carrying the local government to ruin. 

At the same time no one is now inclined to doubt that 
much of the grandeur and beauty of the national capital 
is the outcome of the activity of the board of public works. 
which was made effective by the votes of this very element 
in which there was so much danger. The first investigation 



*s The Negro in the District of Columbia. [180 

had revealed the causes of the condition of the District 
exposed to the second, which the committee considered 
" chargeable to the attempt early made by the authorities 
placed over it to inaugurate a comprehensive and costly 
system of improvements to be completed in a brief space of 
time, which ought to have required for its completion 
several years."' One line in every report of the Commis- 
sioners of the District is a reminder of the times between 
1867 and 1874, and in spite of the exhibit made eighteen 
years afterward in the symmetry and beauty which appear 
on the surface at Washington, it is difficult for the unpreju- 
diced mind to reach any conclusion but that the experiment, 
which ended in the loss of suffrage for all, was untimely, and 
that its expense may be best measured in the financial con- 
dition of the government at the capital when it ceased to be 
a territory. 

'Investigation, etc., 1S74, p. viii. 



VI. 

A GENERATION AFTERWARD. 

Under ordinary circumstances twenty-five or thirty years 
form a very narrow period in the life of any race upon 
which to base a criterion of it. A generation after the 
battle of Hastings, after the French Revolution, or after the 
events of 1776 in this country, would contribute but little to 
the total of the advancement of the races which were affected 
respectively by such changes. Since the war, though, the 
history of this country has been one of wonderful progress 
in many directions, as well as of retrogression in others, for 
the white race, and the same may be said of the negro race. 
At the capital the conditions of the two races have been as 
similar as the strong arm of the national government could 
make them, and there consequently is presented an excellent 
field for forming an estimate of the negro's achievements or 
failures. This may be done only by comparison, remem- 
brance being had at the same time that the preparation of 
slavery for the struggle of negroes on equal lines with whites 
represents but a small fraction of the centuries through which 
Anglo-Saxon civilization has reached its present stage, and 
also that the advantages and opportunities suddenly con- 
ferred upon the negroes were those, which were the natural 
heritage of white Americans and which had been of gradual 
growth, preparation keeping pace with attainment. 

In modern times, when among civilized races physical 
force has become of secondary consideration, the weapons 
of evolution are wealth, education, and suffrage. The la-* 
has been eliminated from the question in the District, the 
opportunities for education by the State are equal for both 
races, and the government lends its aid to such an institution 
as Howard University for the higher education of the 

■' '< capital city has as I the char.' 



!>0 Tfu \> : /nj in the District of Columbia. [182 

of a place for residence rather than for any other purpose 
beyond the phases of departmental and congressional life, 
there have been but few means there for acquiring wealth 
legitimately except in the execution of contracts until the 
territorial government ended, in the ownership of real estate 
or in the various lir.es of retail trade. The aggregate 
wealth of the negroes, therefore, represents in large measure 
the enhancement in the value of their real estate and the 
improvements upon it. In 1861, of the $54,000,000 assessed 
valuation, about $650,000 represented property of negroes, 
and their churches were worth $75,000. Of the $153,307,541 
assessed valuation in 1890, they owned at the least $8,000,- 
000 as far as may be estimated, and one of their churches 
alone is valued at much more than the whole wealth of that 
kind thirty years ago. 

Owners of real estate range from the humble workman 
who cannot read or write, who holds his property by gift or 
purchase in days before the war or immediately subsequent 
to it, to the capitalist who is in a position to employ a white 
agent to attend to his property. The complaint that agents 
have combined to prevent negroes, on account of their 
color, from renting dwellings in certain localities must have 
been based, if entirely true, upon action in recent years, if 
one may judge by the results of a stroll in nearly any 
section of the capital. For police purposes the District is 
divided into nine precincts, and the figures of the last census 
show that in five of these the proportion of negroes to 
whites is beyond that of the whole number in the District 
to the entire population. The exceptions are in the first 
and sixth precincts and in the seventh, which include the 
oldest portion of Washington mid Georgetown, and in the 
ninth, which comprises much of the recently developed 
ion of Capitol Hill, or the northeastern part of the city. 
That of the 30,000 population in 317 alleys the majoritv are 
negroes is explained by their poverty. There may be a 
combination, but it is not because dealers in property do 
not regard the negro's mone\ as good as the white's. The 



183] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 91 

desire to own a home, as shown as early as 1867, when 
one-fifth of the owners of real estate in the city were 
negroes, is a mark of the stability of purpose of some of 
the race, and its maintenance is a monument of thrift and 
industry most marked perhaps among the elements repre 
senting the old ante-bellum slaves and free negroes, but by 
no means confined to them. 

The experience with the Freedman's Bank, remembered 
in sorrow by many a negro, may perhaps be the reason why 
the negroes have preferred to do business with established 
banking houses of the whites, and make some provision for 
their families by joining the Odd Fellows, organized before 
the war, or the many beneficial societies which their race 
has produced. Undeterred, though, by this apparent disad- 
vantage, a number of negroes organized in October, 1888, a 
savings bank with an authorized capital stock of $50,000, of 
which $32,000 have been paid up. During the first year 
$117,000 were deposited in this bank, and in 1892 the 
deposits amounted to more than $317,276. In a statement 
recently issued the fact was announced " that the bank has 
steadilv grown in popular favor and public confidence is 
evidenced by the class of men who have lately become its 
patrons, and by the fact that different charitable and social 
organizations as well as business enterprises are making this 
bank their place of deposit." Private bankers also do busi- 
ness. Though at least one establishment controlled by white 
men has employed a negro as a salesman, there is a tendency 
among some of the negroes to branch out into lines of 
trade for themselves, and they would doubtless be successful 
if they could secure the hearty cooperation of their own 
race. The lack of this may be found to be the fault of both 
parties to the undertaking. They have, however, enga 
in many other lines of business beside running barber shops 
or cobbling, and among them may be found dry goods 
merchants, contractors, grocerymen, real estate men. and 
dealers in the market, the last including the comfortable- 
Icoking proprietor of a stall within the market building and 



92 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [184 

the vendor of herbs and garden " sass " on the outside, an 
excellent type of the survival of the suburban negro of 
thirty years ago. Recently some of them have started a 
house-cleaning bureau, and they announce that this bureau 
" has selected with great care and pains an efficient corps of 
able-bodied workmen, and is prepared to make monthly or 
yearly contracts to clean new and old houses, wash windows, 
take up and put down carpets, scrub floors, wash paints, or 
do any other work required about a house. Special arrange- 
ments will be made for sweeping and dusting office rooms 
in public buildings, and for furnishing boys to run errands, 
either by the hour, day, or week." 

Not a few of the race have increased their means by care- 
ful investment, some by money earned by them and saved 
with prudence, by inherited property or by a due appre- 
ciation of the friendly aid extended them became possessors 
of hotel properties, which are used by the whites, and 
one of these, which was long famous as a first-class hostelry, 
particularly for people of wealth and refinement, was the. 
result of the life work of a man who started most modestly 
and whose later reputation as a caterer is still remembered 
by some of the older inhabitants. 

This accumulation of wealth in some sort or another has 
resulted in a class of negroes competent to enjoy many of 
the refinements and comforts which have made the respect- 
able middle class of whites in this country the conservative 
element in the community, and the mimetic powers of the 
negroes have made the gradations in their society similar 
to those of the whites, though complexities are added by a 
survival of the feelings generated in slavery and by the 
influx from all parts of the country of educated negroes who 
have obtained employment in the several departments of the 
general government. They have their chilis, from the 
fashionable resort fitted with the usual conveniences of such 
resorts, where great men of the race, including Pete Jack- 
son or a foreign minister, are specially entertained, to the 
obscure places devoted to gambling: and though the Bethel 



185J The Negro in the District of Columbia. '•>;; 

Litcran Society, now in its twelfth year, is not only an 
influential power, socially and educationally, the beneficial 
societies or similar organizations appeal strongly to the great 
majority of the negroes. The social extremes are wide 
apart and present sharp contrasts. At one time a church 
may be thronged with a dignified congregation, displaying 
gowns of the most approved fashion, the work, perhaps, of 
negro seamstresses, some of whom are among the best in 
the city, to witness the marriage of a daughter of a man who 
has made his money by shrewdness and enterprise, to a 
member of the younger generation who has had to depend 
upon brain and perseverance to make his mark. The 
bridal costume is a real gown, the diamonds are real, and 
the number of the carriages as they carry the guests to the 
reception is as distinctively matrimonial as if their occupants 
were whites. Let a perambulatory piano strike up a lively 
air in any part of the town almost, and it is soon setting the 
pace for two or three or more negro girls of fourteen years 
or younger, who tickle the fancy of passers-by or the crowd 
which collects by their gyrations, their flings and shuffles, 
which would put a Lottie Collins to the blush. Let a band 
of music, good, bad or indifferent, sound its notes on any 
highway, and immediately it is surrounded by a mass of 
half-grown men and women, frequently in rags, their heads 
and bodies swaying in time with every note, particularly of 
the bass drum or of the trombone, which seems to appeal 
peculiarly to their hearts, slipping, sliding, executing im- 
promptu waltzes, laughing and shouting. They appear so 
suddenly that they may be said to spring almost from the 
asphalt, and it is a debatable point whether the community 
would suffer should one of the musicians become a Pied 
Piper and lead the throng into the bowels of the earth, 
never to appear again. 

It is unfortunate for the negro that outride of the pro- 
fessions about the only vocations paying salaries or wages 
in Washington open to anybody are those of clerks, sales- 
men, officeholders, laborers or servants of one kind or 



D4 The Negro in th< District of Columbia. [ISO 

another. The practical exclusion of negroes from the first 
two classes is due to a preference of white people for whites, 
as well as to the presence of a number of white men and 
women sufficient to meet the demand for such sendees, and 
the willingness of a former mayor of Washington to hold a 
subordinate position in a department or of an ex-clerk in 
the treasury to be a street-car conductor is a manifestation 
of the tips and downs of political life in Washington, which 
hedge out the negro from other lines of competition and 
livelihood. The development of industrial training in the 
public schools, while theoretically an excellent idea, practi- 
cally seems to lose its value partly if the pupils intend to 
become artisans and mechanics, at the same time remaining 
in the District; for there is a limit to their employment just 
as there is a limit to the number of negro doctors, lawyers, 
teachers, officeholders, and ministers who may find profitable 
employment. Washington is not a manufacturing city in 
the strict sense of the term, though there has been an 
increase of industries in the past ten or twelve years. 
The census of 1890 deals with 115 of them, employing 
23,477 hands in 2300 establishments and paying $14,638,790 
wages. The important industries were brick and tile- 
niaking, carriage and wagon factories, flour and grist mills, 
foundry and machine shops, lumber mills, employing a total 
of 2393 hands; lithographing and engraving, printing and 
publishing, with 3724 hands; bottling establishments, malt 
liquor breweries, 328 hands; and confectioneries, 349 hands. 
The situation of negro men in this respect, lamentable as it 
may be, is even better than that of the women. The prin- 
cipal of the Normal School at one time expressed the 
belief that the young girls of her race were peculiarly situ- 
ated in that "they have no avenue open to them in this 
city by which a livelihood can be obtained outside of the 
school-room and menial positions": and it is interesting to 
compare that statement, which has a tone of regret about it, 
with that of Arabella Jones, in 1852, who realized that in 
that age females were naturally destined to become mothers 



187] The Negro in the District of Columbia. '.*."> 

or household servants, and that for either position some 
education was necessary. But the question arises whether 
an education which carries pupils to a point where their 
legitimately acquired ambition has but limited means of 
gratification is not only harmful for the individuals, but a 
possible source of danger to the community. May it not 
also be the case that, as so frequently happens with others, 
the negro has mistaken the means of education for educa- 
tion itself, and thought that the training of the memory 
would develop the faculties of judgment and reason? 

The secular education offered by the public school is 
after all preparatory for real culture, which must be had by 
the intercourse of everyday life in the family, in associates, 
in trade or business, and in the church relations. In the 
District their churches have been the centers in which many 
of the movements of the negroes have been formulated, and 
from their pulpits have frequently been sent the battle-cry 
for the race whether in the District or for the country at 
large, and there, too, have their quasi-leaders uttered the 
sentiments designed for use in the national political arena. 
Their churches have also been the places for a cultivation 
of their social instincts, and although in recent years some of 
the race have built a hall especially for their meetings, the 
mass still abide by their historic rendezvous. The simple 
structures, about a dozen in number in 1861, have in- 
creased in pretentiousness and number nearly ninety, ranging 
from the small building in a neighborhood inhabited by the 
lowliest of the race, to the more costly ones in modem style 
and of substantial architecture in the vicinity of the fashion- 
able residence sections of the city. Some of the pastors are 
men of marked ability as preachers, and their congregat : 
are large and enthusiastic. The negroes appear to cherish 
the forms of religion which appeal to their heart and 
emotions rather than those which require more exercise of 
the mind, — excepting the Catholic, on the one hand, and the 
Congregationalist on the other; and though the bush meet- 
ing is losing its hold upon the more cultivated of the city 



96 Tin Negro in the District of Columbia. [188 

folks, it still has an attraction for those in city or 
country who have not drifted from the traditions of slavers'. 
The statistics of some of the churches well illustrate this 
condition. The Baptist body has 13 white churches and 42 
negro ones, the Methodists of all stripes 23 white and 36 
negro, the Episcopalians 24 white and 3 negro, the Presby- 
terians 18 white and 1 negro, the Lutherans 12 white and 1 
negro. The remarkable contradiction in the situation of the 
Catholic body, which has but one negro church, and of the 
Congregationalists, whose churches are about equally 
divided between the two races, has been mentioned pre- 
viously. The efforts of earnest workers among the negroes 
to reach those who may be of influence hereafter has resulted 
in the organization of a Young Men's Christian Association 
and the occupation of a building in a once notorious locality, 
the character of which has been materially changed by the 
personal endeavor of the pastor of a Congregationalist 
church; within a few weeks a young negro, devoted to 
missionary work among his people, has spent much of his 
time in the establishment of a home for the unfortunate 
negro women for whom no other provision of the kind 
exists in the District; and these movements, like that of 
negro women connected with the Woman's Christian Tem- 
perance Association, are evidence that the highly flavored 
rhetoric of the pulpit and the exultation of the pews asso- 
ciated with many of the churches of twenty years or more 
ago are giving place to the more practical expressions of 
religion, which may be increased by the non-sectarian union 
of the preachers who hold their meetings in the hall of their 
Young Men's Christian Association. 1 

The newspaper, generally regarded a? a great educational 
factor, has not attained a great growth as an undertaking by 
negroes. This has been due not always to lack of capa- 
bilities on the part of the editors, or to the tendency to 

1 The Protestanl Episcopal Church, in its preparatory school for 
negro clerpvmen at King Hall, seems to be nearing a solution of 
the church question as far as thai body is concerned. 



189J The Negro in the District of Columbia. 97 

indulge in personalities and political debates not of an edify- 
ing character. The newspaper readers of the race have gen- 
erally preferred to confine their support to the papers pub- 
lished by the whites because more is given for their money ; 
their own publishers have thereby missed so much of that 
support or part of it, and it is not surprising that two 
weekly publications represent at present the secular press of 
the negroes at the capital. 

To their religion, to the refining influences of wealth and 
education, and to the example of the more favored of the 
race, the negroes have been obliged to look for guidance and 
assistance in the development of their morality. 

Early in the vears of their emancipation Congress took 
steps to remedy whatever defects in the bases of morality 
among the negroes had been bequeathed by the extinct 
system. The act of July 25, 1866, provided that all negroes 
in the District who, previous to the act of April, 1862, had 
agreed to occupy the relation of husband and wife, and who 
were living together as such, or recognizing the relation as 
still existing, whether the rites of marriage had been cele- 
brated between them, should be regarded as husband and 
wife and should be entitled to all the rights and privileges 
and subject to all the duties and obligations of the relation 
just as if they had been married according to law. All 
their children, whether born before or after the passage of 
the act, were to be deemed legitimate were the parents 
still living together. If the mother had died or the parents 
had ceased to live together for any other cause, all children 
of the woman recognized by the man as his should be legiti- 
mate. This provision may have been efficacious in settling 
relations for the forming of which abundant opportunity had 
been presented in the swarming of the new population from 
the fields, but was really no deterrent for those who fol- 
lowed in poverty and ignorance their natural instincts, care- 
less in their thought for the morrow, and living in a style 
which was of a character to dull the sense of personal 
purity even among individuals of a more advanced tvpe. 



98 l'h> Negro in the District of Columbia. [190 

Their poverty and accessions to them of ignorance from 
near-by regions have been a great incubus upon the neg: 
as a whole. Jtis estimated that in I i 32,000 negroes 

in the District one-half were destitute, and the removal of 
contraband families five years before from the camps in the 
city to a point across the river was the origin of a negro 
orphan asylum, — nearly fifty children being left with no 
parents to claim them. It was part of the task of the 
Freedman's Bureau to relieve this distress, and on March 
16, 1867, Congress appropriated in one lump $15,000 for the 
relief of the freedmen in the District or of destitute negroes 
under direction of the I'.ureau. There was at the same 
time considerable destitution among a class of whites, and 
it was even charged that some of the funds designed for the 
negroes had gone in this direction. Their destitution has not 
been remedied to any great extent, and of the 16,000 persons 
in the District now who are believed to be without visible 
means of support the great majority are negroes. The extent 
of pauperism is shown in the number of negroes who eke out 
a livelihood from their pickings on the dumps, and by such 
a picture as was presented in April, 1891, when in one room 
of a one-story shanty were found one day a dead infant. 
and live grown persons and six children suffering from the 
influenza which prevailed at that time. The police have 
probably the best machinery in the District for unearthing 
poverty and misery and for aiding in applying relief, but 
though the cases of sicki nd destitution reported by 

them as sent to the hospitals show that the whites have been 
in a majority in recent years — 1891, for instance, furnishing 
1440 white - and 1132 negro ones — the report of the 

health office reports show another phase of the questi in, the 
physicians to the poor in the same year treating 4041 whites 
and x^>y negroes, and .if the total of 17,048 surgical and 
medical cases receiving aid from the seven dispensaries 
iving District aid [2,033 being negroes. The total num- 
ber of cases treated by the physicians to the poor between 
[883 and [891 was 45410 whites and 93,970 negr 



191] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 99 

While the death rate for both races has decreased in the 
past sixteen years, the larger rate of the two has been and 
is among the negroes, — in 1891 it being 32.68 for the 
negroes and 18.27 for the whites. The death rate among 
the negroes is largely increased by infant mortality, and this 
the health officer attributed in 1889 to a great extent to the 
location of negroes in the alleys and unhealthy parts of the 
city, and this was due to their poverty, which, however, is 
not such as makes them willing to go to the almshouse, 
apparently, as in 1890 of the 273 inmates received but 98 
were negroes, and in 1891 of 182 inmates 81 were negroes. 
Various means have been adopted to meet this emergency 
of poverty, one of the latest being the National Association 
for Destitute Colored Women and Children. The hospitals 
which admit both races render efficient service, a good idea 
of this being given by the report of the Freedmen's Hos- 
pital, which deals with charity cases, and to which were 
admitted in 1892, of a total of 2539 patients, 1970 negroes. 

It is not surprising that the conditions born of poverty 
have contributed largely to the development of immorality 
and crime in spite of the influences of church life, but when 
the statistics in these fields are examined other causes must 
explain the figures, startling in some respects. 1 In thirteen 
years the number of legitimate white births has increased 
from 2068 in 1879 to 2440 'in 1891, and the illegitimates 
from 49 to 73; while the number of legitimate negro births 
has decreased from 1400 in 1879 to 1371 in 1891, and the 
number of illegitimates has increased from 299 to 460 in the 
same years. The respective populations have increased in 
about the same proportion, the negroes remaining about 
one-third of the total. The per cent, of illegitimacy to total 
births has decreased from 12.5 to 12.3. the per cent, of ille- 
gitimacy to total illegitimacy by color lias decreased for the 



'The following tables, derived from the Report of the Health 
Officer of Washington, will prove interesting for the student of 
this phase of the question, some of the figures of population bejng 
approximate : 



100 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [192 





Births. 


— 
-- 

1 

•« 

GO 

395 




My i. ii i.i- *m 


1 I.KOITIM VC\ ■ 








White. 


Negro. 




Births. 


Still-births. 


Births. 


Still-birth-. 


5 
- 


♦a 

-2 


— 
- 

= 

— 


— 
s 

= 

1 


— 

a 

w 

I 

09 


s 

r. 

E 

•— 


z 

.5 

— 

u 

— 

299 


- 
— 
- 

— 
- 

- 


- 

— 
- 

— 


1S79 


3,816 


2,068 


. 


112 


18 


1,400 


171 


94 


1880 


4,095 


358 


2,241 


56 


105 


14 


1,456 


342 


159 


80 


1881 


3,595 


370 


1,961 


53 


125 


16 


1,274 


307 


143 


86 


1882 


3,391 


351 


1,747 


53 


124 


16 


1.277 


314 


146 


65 


1883 


3,116 


362 


1,631 


53 


136 


18 


1,132 


300 


139 


69 


1884 


3,224 


351 


1,684 


63 


123 


9 


1,196 


281 


141 


78 


1885 


3,334 


391 


1,805 


56 


154 


25 


1,136 


337 


127 


85 


1886 


3.516 


406 


1,916 


65 


149 


15 


1,184 


351 


138 


104 


1887 


3,728 


406 


2 022 


70 


127 


22 


1,288 


348 


146 


111 


1888 


3,670 


458 


1,964 


71 


156 


26 


1,262 


373 


155 


121 


1889 


4,001 


443 


2,098 


78 


137 


20 


1,397 


428 


it;:; 


123 


1890 


4,070 


474 


2,171 


75 


172 


11 


1,341 


483 


181 


110 


1891 


4,344 


440 


2,440 


73 


154 


18 


1,371 


460 


157 


111 



Percentages may be studied in this table : 



fear. 



1879 

I ssn 

1881 
L883 

INS I 

1885 
1886 
1887 
1S88 
L889 
1890 
1891 



Population. 



White. 



115,247 
LI 8,236 
121,300 
124,441 
126,800 
130,700 
132,700 

136, 

1 10,000 
145,635 
1 19,000 
154,852 
17n.( 00 



Negro. 



57,130 
59,402 
61,760 
64,212 
65,680 
69,300 
69,300 
69,300 
70,01 
72,522 
74,000 
75,600 

30, 



- 

CD 



Per cent of 

illegitimacy 

to total 

births, by 

color. 



Per oenl of 
illegitima< 5 
to total Ille- 
gitimacy. 

by color. 



- 



12.5 
12.0 
L2.9 
12.3 

14.1 
13.4 
15.0 
15. 2 

1 1.8 
ltl.l 
12.7 
13.7 
L2.3 



z 



1.31 

1.381 

1.47 

L.60 

1.71 

2.00 

L.68 

1.85 

1.83 

L.93 

L.95 

1.84 

1.68 



7.83 

8.35 

9.26 

9.63 

8.70 

10.18 

9.33 
10.16 
10.70 
11.90 
10.70 



— 



14.D 
14.0 
l-t B 
14.4 
15.0 
18.3 
11.:: 
15.6 
If,. 7 
16.0 
L5.4 
13.4 
13.7 




- 

be 
- 



86.0 

S(i.l) 

85.6 
85.0 
81.7 

84.4 
- 

84.0 
84.6 



Per cent oi 
white lUegttt- 
mates to whit e 

births, and 

negro lllegiti- 

mates to aegro 

births. 



S 



2.32 
2.43 
2.63 

3.14 

3.00 
3.28 
3.34 
3.49 

3 34 
2.90 






17.60 
19 02 
19.42 
19.73 
20.95 
19.02 
22 ^s 
22 86 
21.27 
22.18 
23.45 
26.50 
25.12 



193] The Negro w the District of Columbia. 101 

whites and increased for the negroes, while die per cent, of 
white illegitimates to white births has increased from 2.32 in 
1879 to 2.90 in 1891, the highest per cent, in that period 
having been 3.59 in 1889, and the per cent, of negro ille- 
gitimates to negro births has increased from 17.60 in 1879 
to 25.12 in 1 89 1, the last figure having been exceeded most 
in 1890, when the per cent, was 26.50. Of course, the 
statistics of illegitimacy do not include all cases, as the 
finding of 98 dead infants in 1888, 71 in 1889, 69 in 1890. 
75 in 1891, and 97 in 1892, and the reports of abandoned 
infants prove. These amounted in 1888 to 5 negro and 1 
white, in 1889 to 8 negro and 2 white, in 1890 to 3 negro, 
in 1891 to 1 white and 3 negro, and in 1892 to 19 negro and 
1 white. This condition of affairs is attributed to the prac- 
tical absence of any penalty for seduction or adultery beyond 
that relating to girls under 16 years of age, and of provision 
compelling the father to support his illegitimate child, and 
the abandonment of infants to die or fall into the hands of 
the police has been traced to servant girls who were unable 
to keep their children with them while at work, and the 
cases of still-birth are said to have been due to heavy lifting 
and overwork, particularly among negro women. 

The general statements about immorality may be applied 
to those relating to crime. 1 In 1877 the negroes furnished 



1 The statistics of crime for fifteen years may be studied in the 
following table : 



Vkak. 


Population. 


Ah RESTS. 


White. 


Negro. 


White. 


NegTO. 


1877 


109,505 


52,870 


7,523 


5,460 


1879 


115,2-17 


57,130 


8,485 


4.125 


1S80 


118,23fi 


59,402 


7.914 


3,644 


1885 


136,271 


67, 


13,189 


10,036 


1887 


140,( 


70.000 


10,819 


9,156 


1888 


145,635 


71'. 522 


I". 572 


•',958 


1889 


149,000 


74,1 


10,71!' 


lo,4.".l 


1890 


154,352 


75,600 


11,7*14 


12,608 


1891 


17(1.000 


80,000 


11,546 


13,620 


1892 


173,610 


si. 821 


12,415 


14.251 



102 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [194 

42 per cent, of the whole number of arrests, and in 1892 
they furnished 53 per cent., and while between those years 
the negro population has increased 62 per cent., the number 
of their arrests has increased 161 per cent., the proportion 
of the negro population to the white remaining relatively 
the same. More minute study of the statistics of the occu- 
pations of those arrested shows that those which are monopo- 
lized by the negroes furnish the largest number, — the arrests 
in 1877 being 3905 laborers and 788 servants, and in 1892 
being 9068 laborers and 1856 servants, while those having 
no occupation were 270 in 1877 and 1021 in 1892. Com- 
menting on this in 1890, the superintendent of police said 
that "the meanest of all crimes, petty pilferings and thefts, 
constitute the most frequent annoyance to the citizen, house- 
wife, hotel-keeper and stranger here. Dishonest servants 
are in a great measure responsible. The sneak, of whom 
there are so many, belongs to that class of loafers who play 
• crap ' and hang about low-down groggeries and resorts 
during the day and steal under cover of darkness." Of the 
greater criminal cases, while the whites have furnished 
the greater proportion of arrests for forgery, embezzle- 
ment, and false pretense, the negroes are in the majority 
of those arrested for crimes of violence. Nine whites 
were charged with murder in 1888 and 10 negroes, in 
1889 5 whites and 14 negroes, in 1890 12 whites and 
7 negroes, in 1891 1 white and 6 negroes, and 1892 showed 
a marked exception, 12 arrests on this charge being of 
whites and 5 of negroes. The negroes in the workhouse 
preponderate. For this disproportion of negro arrests the 
superintendent of police, in his report for 1891, believes the 
neglected state of the negro child and youth is responsible 
to a great extent. " This is evidenced," he says, " by the 
fact mat out of 228 cases where petit larceny was charged, 
102 were against colored children under 16 years of age, 
and out of 330 charges for the same alleged commissions, 
260 of the accused were between 18 and 21 years of age. 
On the other hand, while the colored vouth take to theft, 



195] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 103 

the white youth takes to drink. Out of 12 cases of intoxi- 
cation where the persons were under 16 years of age, 7 
were white and 5 colored; 104 out of 185, where the persons 
were between 18 and 21, were white; while the whites over 
21 years were extreme, representing- 2769 cases in a total of 
3440. A strange feature in this matter is found in the fact 
that, while the white breaker of the peace is disorderly gen- 
erally when under the influence of liquor, the colored rep- 
resentative creates disturbances without the invigorating 
influence of drink." 

The superintendent of the negro schools in 1890 seemed 
to realize the same facts, and he deduces from a report of 
the preceding year that the offenses committed by the negro 
youth were such " as the school-room, in its greater removal 
from opportunity, would have largely furnished a pre- 
ventive," and adds that "it is but a reasonable inference 
that as a rule, the first step to the causes leading to these 
arrests is idleness, and that in its continuance the step to 
the greater and more aggravated offenses, which the remain- 
ins: cases of arrests embrace, becomes not onlv easier, but 
more and more probable. The school-room, to the extent 
it discourages idleness in the employment it affords, may 
contribute to the diminution of crime; but there must be 
recognized other and graver causes for it — causes that are 
wholly beyond its pale. After leaving it, conditions, imposed 
through inability to earn a livelihood, may force to the 
street, and thus very measurably shorten the distance to the 
prison." 

This theory seems to be sustained by the figures of illit- 
eracy of those arrested in recent years, for in 1877 of those 
arrested 8707 could read and write and 4276 could not, and 
in 1892 20,587 could read and write, while 6079 could not, 
an increase over 1891 of 206, and over 1890 of 2362, inter- 
vening years showing similar variation. 

As long as comparisons of immorality and crime may be 
made with the whites it cannot be said that these phases of 
life are peculiar to the negroes, and their environments are 



104 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [196 

such as to assist them materially in whatever inclination 
they have to imitation. In the case of immorality alone the 
great majority of the mulattoes are innocent memorials of 
the disgraceful example in vice set the negroes by members 
of the white race before and since the war, and the presence 
of great armies at or near the capital during the war could 
not be regarded, as a general rule, as likely to furnish 
recruits from an ignorant and poverty-stricken race to the 
ranks of personal purity. Statistics on this subject are com- 
paratively scarce, and may be partly explained by immigra- 
tion. In 1807, of the 494 free negroes, 215 were mulattoes, 
but no distinction was made among the 1004 slaves; the 
census of i860 showed 4500 mulattoes among 11,131 free 
negroes, and 933 mulattoes among 3185 slaves, a total of 
5433 mulattoes in a negro population of 14,316. Of 
43,000 negroes in 1870 it is estimated that 8032 were 
mulattoes, showing a decided proportionate decrease, and 
the census of 1890 shows 55.736 pure blacks and 19,836 
negroes of mixed blood, of whom 11 26 were quadroons and 
721 octoroons. This is an increase over 1870. Some 
notion of the relation of the mulattoes to crime in the 
District is also given in the last census. There is no peni- 
tentiary in the District, but in the Reform School in 1890 
were 68 whites, 119 negroes, of whom 82 were mulattoes; of 
paupers in the almshouse, 10 were white. 211 negroes, of 
whom 2>7 were mulattoes; and of inmates of the jail 19 were 
white, 169 were negroes, of whom 42 were mulattoes. 
This classification, though, Mr. Frederick H. Wines, the 
expert who prepared the special reports on this subject, 
thinks may not be exact. 

While poverty, their previous existence without law as a 
rule, and the examples before them have doubtless con- 
tributed much to the active agencies against a great number 
of the negroes' progress to the plane occupied by the thrifty, 
educated and conservative middle class, other drawbacks 
have existed in the want of solidarity among the negroes 
themselves; and while some may quote the saying that all 



197J The Negro in the District of Columbia. 105 

races of the earth have been created of one blood, they 
seem to lose sight of the advantage of recognizing that the 
members of the particular negro race have been created of 
one blood. This state of affairs is an effect in part of the 
war-time distinctions, but the obliteration of these has been 
delayed by politics if they have not indeed been increased. 
The withdrawal of the suffrage from residents of the District 
by no means ended political life there. On the contrary, 
politics of the practical sort, robbed of all disguises of public 
policy or patriotism which usually are supposed to be the 
real issues upon which many voters divide, has too fre- 
quently been revealed as the bald struggle for personal 
preferment. This has not been confined to party or race, and 
the rival factions of negroes in separate Republican con- 
ventions sending contesting delegates to a national conven- 
tion, but parallel rivalries among the Democrats with similar 
results, which, however, continue when preliminaries for 
inauguration ceremonies are to be arranged. 1 The negroes 
have not been the entire body of the party in the District with 
which as a general rule they have affiliated, and some 
curious contrasts are presented. 

There are some negro Democrats, and a change of admin- 
istration is likely to swell their ranks, if present indications 
are of value. The difference between the whites and the 
negroes in this particular is that the former do not permit 
differences, born of the heat of a campaign, to enter into 
their relations when a movement is started to benefit their 
community. Not so with the negro politicians, however. 
A study of the names prominent in their race's mass meet- 



"The restoration of the suffrage is frequently urged, and an organ- 
ized movement to that end has been started. Experience, though, 
is likely to change the signal-cry of no taxation without represen- 
tation, to that of no representation without taxation, should the 
citizens of the District be enfranchised, and it would not be sur- 
prising if at the capital the experiment were to be made of a suf- 
frage limited only by property or educational qualification, or by 
both. 



106 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [198 

ings or in undertakings expressive of their ambitions and 
aspirations will frequently reveal animosities of politics, caus- 
ing division of views about methods of material progress. A 
curious manifestation of this has been the dispute at times 
about the celebration of the District emancipation day. 
opposing political leaders marshaling their respective follow- 
ers about differing opinions, — one faction insisting upon a 
parade, another believing only in a mass meeting, at which 
the very sensible programme included a distribution of 
prizes to the young folks for the best specimens of brain- 
work and handicraft, and the excitement reaching such a 
pitch at one time that one of the orators not only expressed 
the opinion " that there are a great number of negroes in 
this city who are unfit to be free," but thought that if they 
continued " to follow brass bands and emancipation chariots 
and spend $5000 for one day's frolic or to demonstrate 
which is the biggest man," there could be little improvement 
in their condition. The climax was reached, perhaps, in 
1886, when it was determined to have two parades. The 
leaders of the rival factions sought to secure a promise from 
President Cleveland to review them, but they received the 
following suggestive letter at the hands of his private sec- 
retary: 

"Sir: It having come to the knowledge of the President, 
to his regret, that the differences which have existed among 
certain colored citizens of this city concerning the parade 
on Emancipation Day are not likely to be harmonized, and 
that two processions are contemplated, he directs me to 
inform you that he will not take sides in the quarrel, and 
therefore declines to accept either of the invitations to 
review the parade. If, however, he can be assured that the 
differences have been adjusted, I am quite sure that it would 
give him pleasure to accept a joint invitation to review one 
procession in which all shall amicably participate." 

The wise advice half revealed in this letter was not fol- 
lowed, for the two parades took place, with brass bands and 
" queens of love and beauty " for both. The speech of 



199] The Negro in the District of Columbia. 107 

1 89 1 showed that politics alone did not contribute to the 
dissension, and additional evidence of this was given in a 
letter of a few years ago, in which the writer took the 
ground that invidious distinctions were made in a parade of 
negroes only, which with its incidentals was demoralizing to 
the youth. 

The same may be said about some of the other phases of 
agitation, for at a meeting in 1891, intended to assist the 
plan of the Educational and Relief Association of the Dis- 
trict, which had in six months raised more than $1500 for 
an institution of shelter and training for negro youths in 
destitute circumstances, a strong criticism was made of the 
absence of " men of means, of influet ce, of popularity, of 
name and fame," who should have been present, and though 
the association had, it was said, clothed and fed 225 chil- 
dren and placed 155 in the public schools, one of the 
speakers lamented the fact that so many seats in the church 
were vacant when a thousand persons should have been 
present. Just a year after that an opposite of this situation 
existed in a call issued for a lecture by a well known white 
leader of the negroes, the proceeds of which were to be 
devoted to the " Industrial Institute Association " and " The 
Children's Home." The men of influence, means and fame 
signed this call. It is one of the most unfortunate facts for 
the negroes in the District that there the " professional 
negro" has found his most congenial surroundings, and 
though the mass are beginning to appreciate the reason for 
his existence, they have not yet been able to loose them- 
selves entirely from that impediment to their more complete 
emancipation. The agitator of the platform and the poli- 
tician of the pulpit have not yet ceased to beguile their 
thousands or to scatter the seeds of disunion of a race. 
Some may be sincere in their utterances, but the complaints 
which rise now and then to the surface indicate that many 
negroes believe that others are not. and the more general 
such a sentiment becomes the better chance will the race 
have for harmonious development. 



108 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [200 

Lack of unity, the absence to a great degree of proper 
race pride, are the elements of weakness in the negroes, as 
shown by their history in the District. The two factors 
have no doubt been fostered by philanthropy, theoretical 
and practical, and by the preponderating use of the negroes 
as a campaign issue, which have led diem to look to the 
white race rather than to themselves for advancement; but 
while dependence may aid an individual here and there, it 
is likely to hamper the real development of the mass, if it 
does not result in actual retrogression. The negro popula- 
tion at the capital is as complex as it is interesting. It 
embraces the pure African, the negro whose blood has 
been untainted since his family has been in this country, the 
mixture of negro, white and Indian, and the various grades 
of the mulatto, including the children or descendants of the 
white father and negro mother and the children of the white 
mother and negro father. The native free negro and freed- 
man, the whilom contraband, the educated or uneducated 
negro from many sections of the country have found their 
home there and form distinct types which are commingled 
in other classes based upon education, wealth or political 
influence. Dependence based upon politics seems to be 
lessening in its intensity, and this change will tend to oblit- 
erate the distinctions and cross purposes which now exist, 
the discontent and petulance which crop out at the meet- 
ings intended to strengthen the negro's position The want 
of harmony is deplored by members of the race who in 
public speaking seek to guide their fellows into right line- 
instead of using them merely as instruments for their self- 
aggrandizemenl : and one of the most significant, because 
truthful, expressions in this direction was that of a negro 
woman who spoke at a meeting on the first day of this year 
commemorative of the acl of general emancipation thirty 
\c ars before. 

"The achievements of which we boast," said she, "arc not 
enough in any line to make it patent to the world that we are 
advancing. The individual. In iwever learned, accomplished or 



201J The Negro in the District of Columbia- 109 

wealthy, must, in a large measure, follow the condition of 
his race. The whole is equal to the sum of its parts, and if 
ninety-nine of those parts are poverty, degradation and 
ignorance, the one-hundredth part counts as nothing toward 
changing the result as a whole. Of the many things which 
may be said to militate against our race, all of them might 
be condensed into one sentence: 'Lack of true racial pride.' 
Lack of unity follows almost as a matter of course. 

" Of no other race can it be so truly said that the hand of 
every other race is raised against it, and its own hand is 
raised against itself. Other races are proud of their history 
and antecedents; we seem to wish to get as far from ours 
as possible; other races struggling for a foothold unite for 
that purpose and strengthen each other against the common 
enemy. Our race, alas! will not unite on either commercial 
or material grounds." 

Study of the history of one race which many centuries 
ago were in a condition similar to that of the negroes before 
the war, impresses one with the fact that in all their struggles 
they have been strengthened by pride of race, which is 
strictly maintained to-day. When they were contending 
against oppressive measures which have been but faintly 
mirrored in the history of the freedmen, their unity of blood 
kept them compact, and the same principle makes their 
race one of the most independent ones in America to-day. 
It will also be remembered that when this race had been 
led to the borders of the Promised Land, the man who had 
led them out of bondage and for forty years in the wilder- 
ness was taken from them. For this there may have been 
other reasons than the act in Zin. A settled race requires 
a different sort of leader from the ruler of a migratory 
body; and though the history of the negroes may never 
parallel that of the Hebrews, they may be prevented from 
enjoying the full fruits of the strivings of forty years or 
more by the fact that their Moses of one kind or another 
still is with them and essays to apply past methods of 
leadership to present conditions, which show a change to a 
wonderful degree. 



110 The Negro in the District of Columbia. [202 

Sir John Lubbock tells of a plant which sprouts suddenly 
to some height and tiien by its own weight sinks to its 
original level, and progresses firmly and steadily by tendrils, 
which it sends in all directions. It may be that the negro 
in the District is destined to follow a similar course, and 
that those who have been given or who have gained by their 
own exertions advantages of the best sort and who have 
shown the possibilities of their race, will see the wisdom of 
reaching down to their less fortunate brethren and of encom- 
passing the whole body in a compact, healthy growth, bound 
together bv the tendrils of education, refinement and 
material prosperity, which may be the great factor for the 
elevation of their race in the whole country. 



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